What Comes of a Choice
by QueenKalasin
Summary: A simple choice done differently can have profound effect.Sirius was given a second chance at his death, and somehow he was raising two wild children with his best friend. Now the unusual family is on a collision course with a future that had ceased to be
1. Prologue: What Came of Dying Right

**_Prologue_: A Dying Wish (636)**

Most people's dying thoughts fall neatly into one of three categories: the selfish, the really selfish, and the really, really selfish. Allow me to explain further. At the moment of their death, some people are thinking only of the immediate physical sensations they are experiencing, which is what I call selfish. The really selfish people are thinking about what they never got the chance to do. And the last group is often angry with whatever circumstance brought their death about and is thinking only of what impact that has.

There are, however, rare people whose last thought is something nobler. Some parents wonder how their child will fare without them, some people die proudly for a cause they really believe in. There are enough of these people that their dying thoughts don't catch my attention any more often than the others that are constantly murmuring in the back of my mind.

Yet every once in a long while, someone thinks something as they die that impresses me.

That's what happened when a relatively young man by the name of Sirius Black fell through a veil and into the realms of the dead. Yet before he came under the power of the entity that rules there, I grabbed him for my own. In my celestial home, Sirius Black came to, slightly woozily. I could hear the groggy thoughts that floated through his mind, wondering if he were in heaven, but I ignored that.

What had impressed me about the man's final thoughts wasn't that they were full of a selfless sort of regret, because that happens often enough, it was that one moment, one decision had been pinpointed in his mind as what he would change. I looked into his eyes and learned his story. Something seemed slightly odd about the moment he wanted to have done differently.

"Mortal, is it true that given the choice, you would raise your friends' son rather than save their lives?"

"What? Uh, yeah…" he said aloud. His thoughts wandered from my question, probing our surroundings. I found that he saw everything through a sort of haze, though the details were all clear to my eye. He even saw me as little more than a blinding light. He wondered briefly how I knew anything about what had happened to him, why I knew what he would change. Soon, he was on the verge of asking, but I cut him off with a question of my own.

"Why? You loved them; why not regret that you didn't become their Secret Keeper? Why wish more that you had done things differently once they were already dead?"

"I would do anything to have Lily and James alive again…but I don't think that we could have evaded Voldemort forever. Eventually he would have overcome our efforts, so it is better that it happened as it did. Because things went as they did, Harry had a chance to grow into his fate a bit before it was dumped on him. As much as it pains me to be without James and Lily, I think that this way is better for more people than just me. But, as much as I think that James and Lily's deaths were unavoidable, Harry's life afterwards wasn't. I should have been there to help him pick up the pieces. I should have been there to raise him. What I regret is not hanging onto Harry from the moment I pulled him from the rubble in his bedroom." The mortal frowned then, wondering why he had felt compelled to say all that, to articulate thoughts that he was scarcely aware of having.

I paused a moment, looking into the past that was and the past that could have been. Then I was decided.

"Very well, mortal, you may have your second chance."


	2. Chapter 1: What Came of A Divergence

**_Chapter One_: The Divergence **

On the 31st of October, When Sirius Black had discovered that Peter Pettigrew was missing from his assigned hiding place with no sign of a struggle, he had to exercise massive control not to panic. Things might still be all right. Perhaps Peter had gotten lonely or bored and made an unscheduled visit to Lily, James and Harry. It wasn't like there were any signs that Peter had been forced from the house, and even the weakest of the Marauders wouldn't have gone down without a fight, especially not when the wards protecting him had been cast by Albus Dumbledore himself.

So, biting down a wave of fear, and taking a minute to make sure the stuffed dog he had bought for Harry was still securely tucked away, Sirius had hopped on his motorbike and roared away to the Potters' home. Surely, he told himself, nothing could be amiss there. After all, Sirius had been to check on the little family only the day before. Nothing bad could possibly have happened since then. He would get there, and Peter would be entertaining Harry, transforming into a rat and scurrying around with the toddler that they all loved so much. Maybe Lily would invite them all to stay to dinner, and it would be like a party. Sirius could do with some cheer, especially after the initial fright of Peter's disappearance.

But then Sirius came face to face with the smoking hole in the Potters' home, the smoking hole that had once been the roof of a small boy's bedroom. The panic he'd held in check flooded through him, pushing him on as he clumsily landed the bike and ran into the cottage. There was no way this could have happened. The only way it could have was if Peter had _let_ it happen. Peter had _led a murderer right to James and Lily._

Sirius sprinted up the front walk and into the house. Just inside the door, he stopped cold.

James lay dead, just to the right of the staircase that led to the upper level of the small home, where the bedrooms were located. Disbelief filled him, and Sirius couldn't bring himself to even go close enough to James to make sure of his death. Instead Sirius vaulted up the steps, turning to the right, only to remember that that direction, the direction that led to Harry's bedroom, was little more than a pile of rubble. Fear choked him again, thinking of Harry and Lily trapped under the remains of their house. He was paralysed, even though they could be hurt, waiting for someone to rescue them. They could be dying, even as he stood there…

Relief poured through him when he saw a shadowy figure moving near where Harry's cot still stood, until Sirius realised that the proportions of the person were simply too large to have been Lily. "Who's there?" he asked, hysteria edging his voice, hand clenching around his wand.

The figure jumped. "Who's _that_?" he returned.

"Hagrid?"

"Sirius?"

"Oh, God, tell me all this isn't happening," Sirius pleaded, "Tell me that they aren't all dead! Tell me that this is all just a bad, bad nightmare!"

"'Fraid I can't," Hagrid replied, choking on tears himself. "James is dead downstairs, Lily's just over there… dead, too. Not a mark on either of them, though. Harry… I don't know about Harry."

The last gave Sirius the tiniest fragment of hope. He nearly flew to the cot and ripped away the boards and rubble that had fallen across the top bar of the crib, forming a sort of cave out of the bed. From the dirty mattress below, green eyes peered up at Sirius.

Thankfully, _lively _green eyes peered up. Before Sirius even lifted his godson into his arms, he vowed to avenge the poor orphaned boy. Sirius would make Peter pay for what he had done. He would track him down, and make him regret this heinous betrayal. Sirius would make Peter suffer for all he had done to their friends, for Lily and James and Harry's pain…

Even as his thoughts were wandering into images of what he would do to the treacherous rat, Sirius scooped little Harry into his arms as he had done a thousand times before. And suddenly all thoughts of revenge were gone.

All thoughts entirely were gone a moment.

Then there was a small voice whispering in his ear that he would regret it if he ever put this child down. Peter didn't matter, really, not when Harry's well-being was still in question. The time for revenge might come, but for right now, Harry needed Sirius to be with him. They'd go to Moony's, since it was now abundantly clear that werewolf wasn't the spy. Sirius would explain, apologise for suspecting him, and they would band together like the brothers they practically were and take care of Harry together…

"…glad Harry's alright," Hagrid was saying, "Dumbledore wants him at the Dursley's this evenin'. They're his mum's relatives; Dumbledore thinks Harry should stay with them."

"NO!" snapped Sirius. "Harry's not going anywhere!"

"Dumbledore said…" began Hagrid, nearly reaching to take the baby from Sirius, who was now clutching at him in a way that suggested he would never let go. The baby didn't seem to mind the rougher than usual treatment; Harry just stared at his godfather with huge, silent green eyes.

"Harry's my godson. I'll take him, I'll keep him," Sirius murmured, "We belong together, now that we've got no one else. Harry, and me and Moony… all that's left…"

"Look, Dumbledore sent me to collect Harry and take him to Surrey. Jus' give Harry to me, and I'll take him to Dumbledore. You can talk to him later about keepin' Harry, okay?" suggested Hagrid, not unkindly. "Jus' give him to me, Sirius."

"No," Sirius said firmly this time, his resolve hardening as Hagrid made another faint attempt to reach for the child in his arms. "Harry'll stay with me. Dumbledore can find us later, to talk if he likes, but Harry will stay with me."

"Sirius, don't you think Dumbledore knows best?" asked Hagrid, as though it were a given. Sirius supposed he should be grateful that the loyal half-giant was even hesitating in disobeying Dumbledore's explicit orders. He knew that he'd have to work with that tiny hesitation carefully if he wanted to sway the other man to his side.

"He can't have known I'd come to get Harry," Sirius pointed out, "He didn't know I'd want to raise him myself. Hell, as far as Dumbledore knows, I don't even know about what happened to James and Lily."

"Even still…"

"Hagrid, they're gone. Lily and James are both _dead_. Do you understand that? They were my only family, they were Harry's only family. We don't have anyone but each other! Don't be the one who rips us apart," Sirius pleaded persuasively, desperately.

"Er…uh, well… don't suppose it would hurt nothin' to leave it for Dumbledore to come to you," Hagrid mumbled. "I'll just go tell him you've got Harry, then."

"Take my motorbike. I can't use it, anyway," Sirius told him, "Lily would have a bird if I took Harry up on it."

A ghost of a smile chased across Sirius's face until he looked down for the first time on the corpse of his best friend's wife. Lily Potter was just as beautiful in death as in life, and a hell of a lot more peaceful, but the sight of her pale and motionless chilled Sirius to the bone. Her wide green eyes were blank in a way that they never have been when she was alive, and they forced the image of another set of green eyes open in death into Sirius's mind. _Harry could be dead right now, too._

But he wasn't, and Sirius was going to see to it that he grew up the way Lily and James would have wanted, because he really was all Harry had left. Lily had loved Petunia, but Sirius knew from her descriptions of the woman and her family that the redheaded mother would never choose her sister to raise her son.

Suddenly Sirius was grateful that he could do this for James and Lily, that he could raise Harry and begin to make up for accidentally causing their murders. That gratefulness overflowed and he turned to Hagrid with tears in his eyes. "Thank you so much, Hagrid. I couldn't give him up, right now, I don't think. Not for anything."

Hagrid smiled uncertainly and waved a little as he left.

Sirius took a deep breath to collect himself. He settled Harry, who was quietly sleeping by that time, into his cot after finding that there wasn't any cleaner, intact substitute in the room, and steeled himself for the difficult task ahead of him. Then he carefully lifted Lily's body in his arms and carried her out of the ruined part of the house and into the bedroom across the hall. He laid her on the bed and sadly went down the stairs and repeated the process with James. When they were lying side by side, Sirius carefully closed their eyes. Now they looked more at rest and less… dead.

Finally, Sirius collected Harry, and left. He took with him a small bag of Harry's things, a few mementos for the boy when he grew up and the weighty knowledge that he had just embarked on the most important mission of his life.

ooOoo

Never, in all his years, had Rubeus Hagrid failed to do something Albus Dumbledore had asked of him, until that first day of November 1981. Understandably, he was a bit nervous as he approached Number Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.

He set the bike down, not happy to realise that Minerva McGonagall was there to witness his failure as well.

"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved, "At last. And where did you get that motorbike?"

"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, "Sirius Black got to the Potters just after me. He gave me the bike."

Dumbledore could clearly sense that something was wrong. "Sirius Black was there? Hagrid, you do have Harry, don't you?"

"Er, well, no, not exactly," he muttered.

"What do you mean, not exactly?" cried McGonagall, "You didn't go and drop him off the motorbike, did you?"

"No… Harry never got as far as the bike," Hagrid hedged a moment before the confession came rushing out of him, "He's with Sirius." 

"Harry's with Sirius?" question Dumbledore sharply.

"Yeah," Hagrid admitted glumly, "I was all set to bring him to you, but then Sirius showed up and started talking about how Harry's the only thing he's got left, and how Sirius was the only thing Harry had, and I started thinkin' about when I lost me own dad. I sure could have used a friend o' his to look out for me…"

"What's wrong, Albus?" McGonagall questioned, because actual fear seemed to have taken root inside of Dumbledore as Hagrid rambled on. "Black might be irresponsible, but surely someone who loved James and Lily so much isn't the worst person to have Harry. He may even be better than those horrible muggles."

"Black doesn't love the Potters," snapped Dumbledore in a tone neither Hagrid nor McGonagall could ever remember hearing from the aged professor before, "He betrayed them to Lord Voldemort."

"No!" gasped Hagrid even as McGonagall snapped out another sharp "What?"

"The Fidelius Charm," Dumbledore sighed, "Black was their Secret Keeper."

"Surely he wouldn't have sold James Potter down the river!" McGonagall protested. "Not Sirius! They were thick as thieves, as close as brothers!"

"He was the only one who could have," Dumbledore simply said.

"No, it can't be!" protested Hagrid, "You weren't there, if you had have seen the look on Sirius's face when he saw Lily, you'd know he weren't responsible!"

"We must be missing something," McGonagall said desperately, "Hagrid can't have handed Harry Potter over to the man you brought You-Know-Who to his parents' home!"

"I'm afraid that may have been just what he did," Dumbledore said sadly.


	3. Chapter 2: What Came of a Battle

**_Chapter Two:_ What Comes of a Battle **

Sirius was fuming mad. It had taken enough effort to elude Dumbledore until he had proved to the old man by virtue of a vial of memories delivered by Owl Post that Sirius wasn't the one who had betrayed Lily and James. The endeavour had not been made easier by the fact that he was on the run with a one year old. Sirius hadn't slept properly in the week since the Horrible Halloween (as he privately called it). He also hadn't been able to reconnect with Remus as had been his original intent, which meant that he had been solely responsible for Harry's care for six and a half days. That was 156 hours, which was a very long time, indeed, considering Lily had never left him alone with Harry for more than a couple of hours before their entire world tilted off its axis. Sirius didn't know if Lily had limited his one-on-one time with the boy for Harry's benefit or his own, but the exhausted man thought perhaps it may have been a plot on the witch's part to keep Sirius from realising how much work kids actually were so that he might someday be tricked into having children of his own.

But now, to top it all off, after Sirius had finally gotten through to Dumbledore, the damn Ministry was insisting on holding some sort of custody hearing regarding Harry's future. Five different families were vying to adopt Harry out from under his Godfather's feet, and Sirius still wasn't convinced that Dumbledore wouldn't try to push the Dursley option. It was nearly enough to make Sirius cry. Unfortunately, due to the fact that he had to be in court within the hour, he didn't have time for such things. So, with a sigh, Sirius went back to dressing a sleepy toddler, all the while cursing the Ministry idiots under his breath.

ooOoo

While Sirius Black was accidentally teaching his lone charge some very questionable vocabulary in a seedy hotel in London, Molly Weasley was being driven insane by her own children many miles away.

She sighed in frustration. Today was supposed to have been her first trip to Diagon Alley with her children in over a year. She hadn't been planning on buying a lot, but she had really been looking forward to a day out with the children, and now it seemed as though she would never corral them into enough order to get them out the door. Though her oldest, Bill, was presently at Hogwarts, doing his first year, that still left six children at home, including a three-month-old baby. That meant that there were a lot of things to be gathered and a lot of bodies to get through the Floo Network. Everyone was tearing around the house in a tizzy, the older boys just as excited to be leaving the house for the day as Molly was, but nothing seemed to be coming together that morning.

Finally, when baby Ginny began to fuss, Molly just sat down and burst into tears. A moment later five-year-old Percy had fetched Molly's husband Arthur for her and he had scooped the crying baby from her arms and pulled Molly into a hug, making soothing noises as he rubbed her back. Ginny and Molly both stopped crying quickly. "There, there, dear, what's wrong?" Arthur asked his wife quietly as her sobs hiccoughed to a stop.

"I w-wanted to take the children out for the day, now that its safe, but nothing seems to be working out and then the baby started to fuss, and was just looking so forward to being out of the house, and now I don't know if I'll be able to go. It's stupid, really, but I thought it would be nice to let the boys go somewhere else for a change after the war kept us all so cooped up for so long," Molly admitted, a bit embarrassed by her tears now.

"That's all perfectly understandable," Arthur assured her, "And I'm sure it can be arranged for. How about I take Ginny to work with me for the day so you can just worry about the boys?"

"Oh, would you?" asked Molly, "Do you think anyone would mind terribly?"

"Everything has been rather relaxed lately," Arthur pointed out. "I doubt that anyone will really care if I've got my daughter with me, so long as I do my job."

"That would be wonderful. You spend the day with Ginny and I'll take the boys out," Molly reiterated. "Percy, Charlie, Ron, Fred, George! Let's get a move on it! I want to be in Diagon Alley no later than a half hour from now!"

And with that, Molly bustled off happily to ready the five sons she had at home for a rare day of fun. Arthur smiled indulgently, and then set about gathering the things that he would need to keep Ginny happy at his office for the day. Fifteen minutes later, he said goodbye to the rest of his family and carefully Apparated to work with his sleeping baby in his arms.

ooOoo

Sirius Black was not lucky enough to be going to the Ministry with a quietly slumbering child in tow, but with a squirming, curious one year old who was making it rather difficult to operate the visitor's entrance. Never the less, Sirius managed to get Harry quieted down as they descended into the Ministry, so that they were presenting a good front coming into the hearing. He wondered if perhaps it was wrong of him to have bribed Harry to behave by giving him sweets, but forgave himself this one time, because it was such an important day. Besides, Sirius thought he was really starting to get the hang of this whole kid-raising business. He was even beginning to think he might have a chance of keeping Harry, even if Dumbledore were to push to have him sent to his mother's relations. After all, Sirius was the one who had been taking care of Harry since his parents' deaths, and it wasn't as though he didn't have enough gold to provide for the boy, since his uncle had left him a house and a modest sum. And while he might not currently have a job, surely some of the skills he'd acquired working for the Order of the Phoenix would be transferable? Hell, if he had to, he'd go crawling back to his mother, if it meant keeping Harry safe and with him. Most importantly, though, was the fact that Sirius truly loved James and Lily's son, not just based on his parents, or the strange events of the previous week, but for the kid himself.

Yes, Sirius was beginning to feel slightly hopeful about the outcome of the custodial hearing, no matter that he resented being summoned to the courtroom so unfairly.

Unfortunately, they never made it as far as the courtroom that day, because they were waylaid by the arrival of group of slightly ragged, desperately insane Death Eaters on the scene. When twenty-odd masked figures Apparated into the atrium of the Ministry of magic a week after the defeat of the Dark Side was supposed to have happened, chaos naturally ensued.

Sirius Black had been trained to deal with chaos, though, and his instincts began to take over as he pulled his wand from his pocket and prepared to wade in to the fight. He might have sprung for the nearest Death Eater right then, had a small hand not grasped at his pant leg.

Sirius looked down at Harry, suddenly forgetting all plans of sticking around for the fight. He scooped Harry back into his arms and made an attempt to Apparate away. However, he found himself unable to use that escape, and heartily cursed Anti-Apparition jinxes. Sirius looked around for an available Floo grate, but saw that they were all clogged with confused Ministry workers who were arriving to work only to discover the beginnings of a battle. The Death Eaters were now between them and the visitor's entrance, which meant there was no escape to be had that way. So, left with little other option, Sirius vaulted over the security desk and ducked into the first office he saw. It was small and cluttered, but that hardly mattered.

Sirius dropped Harry on the floor behind the desk and was turning to secure the door when something unexpected happened.

ooOoo

Unexpected was the word Arthur Weasley's overloaded mind offered up when he arrived at work only to find a battle gearing up between Ministry workers and mad Death Eaters. He thought a split second after that there should be a stronger word to describe it, but he didn't dwell on it. He brought up his wand and dropped the bag of baby paraphernalia he held in one hand and wrapped the other more securely around his daughter. He tried to Apparate away, discovered that the option wasn't available and began to seek a hiding spot, not even bothering to hope that there was a Floo open. He knew how clogged they were at this time of day; it was the reason that he Apparated to work.

He was heading for his office to tuck the baby away when his eyes caught on a young witch who couldn't be more than a couple months out of Hogwarts. She was standing frozen by the sight of the battle a few feet to his right, skin pale all over, from her shocked face to the nerveless fingers that had spilled her purse at her feet. Arthur knew that if she continued on that way, she'd be killed in a moment. Without another thought, Arthur grabbed her by the arm and forced her to look at him.

"Get out of here, right now," he said, pushing her back towards the offices and what safety they offered, supporting her weight as she stumbled over the things that had tumbled from her bag earlier. "Get back into one of those rooms and don't leave."

She looked back at him with frightened blue eyes. "What's going on?" she asked in a whimper.

"They're attacking the Ministry," Mr Weasley said needlessly, wracking his mind for some sort of reason to offer up, and finally realising it. "They'll be looking for Harry Potter. He's supposed to be here for a custody hearing today."

The young woman seemed to regain some of her wits when they had reached the relative safety of an alcove just in front of the security desk. "Are you coming, too? To save your baby?"

Arthur hesitated. He was truly torn for a moment, and might have said yes, had a tortured scream not erupted above the general noise of the fighting. "I can't," he said firmly, "They need help out there. But I'd be grateful if you'd take my Ginny with you." This conversation was quickly becoming surreal as the battle swelled just feet from them, so Arthur put Ginny carefully in the woman's arms and told her to wait a moment while he tried to draw the battle away from the alcove. "Please, keep her safe." With one last deep breath, Arthur dived into the fray, not daring to look back for fear that attention would be called to the hidden pair.

Moments after, the young woman dashed over the security counter as Sirius had done just seconds before and headed towards the still open door through which he had disappeared. Before she could make it through the door, an errant spell exploded a nearby statue, sending a jagged shard of stone straight through the woman's chest.

ooOoo

Sirius had nearly closed the door on the woman he had seen vaulting towards his and Harry's hiding spot, and he may even have done it for Harry's protection, had there not been a baby in her arms. Instead he held the door open and prepared to slam it shut the moment she was through.

Instead, he found himself leaping forwards to catch the kid as the woman was thrown forward, some projectile lodged in her back. Sirius dragged the pair inside, horrified by the woman's injury. When he had slammed the door and secured it, Sirius discovered that her harsh landing had split her skull open. He was in a state of shock as he looked down at the baby in his arms. There didn't seem to be anything he could do for the mother, and the baby seemed unharmed. Sirius didn't know what to do until the woman's eyelids fluttered open on brown orbs clouded by pain.

"He said… he said…" she muttered in a way that made Sirius think she wasn't aware of him. Then the woman looked straight at him, "Take baby… save … Ginny…keep her s-"

And then, with no further word or gesture, the woman subsided into death.

Sirius didn't know what to do. He couldn't imagine staying in here with the dead woman, but he couldn't drag Harry out into the open again. Sirius sank to the floor, deep in thought, heedless of the baby still tucked into the crook of his elbow. Moments that felt like hours passed before a small touch startled Sirius from his stupor.

Harry had rested a small fist on Sirius's up-drawn legs, but the small boy's attention wasn't on his godfather, but on the little bundle of blankets he held. Then Harry looked up at Sirius with a question in his eyes.

"Paddy?" he asked, looking down at the small child, "Baby?"

"Yeah, Harry, it's a baby," Sirius admitted. _A baby who's dying mother just asked me to keep it._ "Come on, sport, we're getting out of here."

Sirius got to his feet and leaned down to settle the baby on the floor behind the desk, where he had previously hidden Harry. His conscience twinged a bit at leaving the child alone, but who could reasonably expect a perfect stranger to adopt their child out of the blue?

Sirius' only answer, that that sort of person was a very desperate one, didn't really help the feelings of guilt, so he rummaged through the bag of Harry's things that he had brought along and produced a blanket on to which he placed the already bundled baby. Sirius couldn't think of anything else he could do, so he firmly told himself that someone else would come in here sooner or later and be able to find out who the mother was, and therefore, who would be the logical person to inherit the small child. That refrain in mind, Sirius went to the door and tried to ease it open only enough to see what was happening so he could devise an escape.

While he was distracted, Harry padded around the desk and stood gazing down at the younger child. When Sirius had finally hit upon a plan that seemed viable, he turned to find his godson. As he came around the desk, Harry looked up at him again and said "Baby."

"Yes, yes, Harry," Sirius said distractedly, picking his godson up and casting a charm that made them both near as good as invisible. He steeled himself for what he had to do next and glanced down to check on the baby again, just for good measure. The kid was awake now, gazing up at the world with bright brown eyes, shoving a tiny fist into a small mouth. Sirius smiled in spite of himself, remembering when Harry had been that little. Sirius shook himself and made to leave the baby behind, when Harry started putting up a grand fuss. Nothing would do for the boy but taking along the baby.

Sirius resisted a minute or two, but in the end, he didn't think he would have been able to just leave a helpless infant behind. With a sigh, Sirius set Harry down by the baby, and, still invisible, approached the baby's dead mother. He searched her pockets and came up empty. The woman had nothing to identify her, and Sirius doubted that she would have asked him to take her baby had she have had an alternative…

So it looked like Harry was getting his wish. Sirius quickly cast the necessary charms to make sure they were all hidden from sight, tucked a kid under each arm and dashed out the door. He carefully darted through the battling fighters, a small part of him feeling like he should be helping to round up the Death Eaters. But getting Harry and the baby out of danger was more important. Besides, Sirius could tell that the desperate villains were well on their way to defeat, even without his help.

As Sirius reached his destination, the visitor's entrance, he glanced around quickly, wondering if anyone had noticed them. No one had, and so Sirius punched in the code that would get them back up to street level. His last glimpse of the battle was of a red haired man stunning a Death Eater.

ooOoo

It took the Ministry another hour to neutralize the last of the attackers. After the first frenzied moments, the side of good had sustained few casualties, but the losses were great none the less. In the first half hour of clean up, Frank and Alice Longbottom were discovered, both in very rough shape, barely alive and nearly insane. Others had died, and Arthur knew that he would mourn them deeply, but at the moment he had only one thing on his mind: finding his daughter.

He didn't know where the young witch worked, or even for certain if she worked at the Ministry, so Arthur began his search by opening the first door he came to after clearing the security area. He recoiled when he saw a mangled corpse, but it took a moment for him to recognise the face. When he did, panic fluttered in his chest. Arthur immediately began searching the office for some sign of Ginny, and discovered only a forgotten baby blanket behind the desk, and a small bag that held an abused old story book, a few diapers and a small, blue shirt. Arthur didn't know what to make of it, since he had dropped his bag of Ginny's things somewhere near the Apparition point, but he didn't stop to try to figure it out.

Arthur left the small office and went straight to Alastor Moody, the head Auror. In the last few months, Arthur had been working with Moody in an attempt to protect the Muggle population without exposing the magical community. Arthur had spent enough time working with the man to feel comfortable now going to him for help, but he was worried enough about Ginny to have gone to anyone, no matter how intimidating, for assistance.

"Madeye!" he called, "Madeye, I've got a problem."

"What's up, Arthur?" responded the grizzled old man.

"It's my daughter," Arthur began with relief. If anyone in the world could help him find Ginny quickly, it was Alastor.

ooOoo

Once Sirius was clear of the Ministry, he admitted it was time to risk going to Remus', even if it was possible that Dumbledore would track him down there, even if the werewolf was still mad that Sirius had convinced James and Lily to keep him out of the loop.

It was strange now, thinking that a week ago he had been convinced that Remus was the spy in their midst. Now it seemed so clear that Peter had been the one who was betraying them all that Sirius could scarcely remember what it was like not to trust Remus, especially for such stupid reasons as his had been.

It was raining when Sirius Apparated to the small cottage where Remus lived, not far from London, but Sirius took a moment to end the spells keeping him and the two children hidden. With a sense of guilt and foreboding, he set Harry on his feet, adjusted the baby to keep the rain from its face, and walked up to the door. Sirius knocked and waited for a response that never came.

After several more minutes, Sirius used magic to open the door and called out to his friend, excusing his rudeness because he couldn't very well stand out in the rain with two small kids. When no one answered, Sirius hesitantly walked through the front room and into the kitchen beyond. A half-eaten piece of toast lay next to a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ dated November 1st on the kitchen table.

Sirius frowned, wondering where Remus could be, until he noticed the headline across the middle of the paper.

"VOLDEMORT DEFEATED!" it blared, followed by the words that still hit Sirius like a freight train, despite the fact that he had seen the bodies: "JAMES AND LILY POTTER DEAD".

Now Sirius could guess what had happened. Remus had been eating breakfast a week ago when he got the news, and had rushed off somewhere (where, though?). He clearly had yet to return. Sirius didn't know what else to do, so he settled on to the living room floor with the kids to wait for the werewolf's return. He might have left, had he not been so tired and in need of an ally, or maybe if it hadn't still been raining.

As it was, Sirius used his wand to dry their clothes, and light a fire. In a few moments, the young pair was asleep on the living room floor, and Sirius turned his attention to composing a short note. There were only three short sentences, but they may have been the most important that he had ever put to parchment.

_Albus,_

_I'm through trusting the Ministry. Harry and I will be safer on our own, so we're going to go away for a while. I'll keep in touch._

_Sirius Black_

The note written and on its way, Sirius curled up next to the two young children and slept.

ooOoo

"Oh, Arthur, there you are!" cried a tearful Molly Weasley when her husband arrived home late that evening. "I heard the worst rumour in Diagon Alley today! They said Death Eaters attacked the Ministry! I was so worried!"

"That's all true," Arthur said slowly, not quite ready to reveal the worst. Molly must have sensed, it though, or perhaps just taken note of Ginny's absence.

"Arthur, where's the baby?" she exclaimed sharply, "Where's Ginny?"

"She's gone," he said, voice tight, tears leaking from his eyes, "I tried to keep her safe… and now she's disappeared."

"Disappeared?" asked Molly breathlessly, "How the hell does a three month old baby disappear?"

And so Arthur told her what had happened that day. Later Molly would tell him that there was no way he could have known she would vanish, that he had done the brave thing, going back to fight when he thought his daughter would be safe. She told him she was proud of him, and that he'd done the right thing. In the end, though, Arthur Weasley would always blame himself for giving his precious little girl over to the care of another at such a crucial moment, and would regret it to his dying day.

ooOoo

Sirius, Harry and the baby girl lived in Remus' house a week before the werewolf returned. They had camped mostly in the sitting room, since Sirius still wasn't sure if there would be hard feelings between the last true Marauders, and he didn't want to be seen as intruding.

With those uneasy thoughts to occupy his mind and the care of two kids to occupy his hands, Sirius was quite surprised when Remus' immediate reaction was to pull his startled friend into a tight hug. "Where the hell have you been?" he asked.

"Er, well, right here, for the last week," Sirius said, caught off balance by his quiet friend for the first time in many, many years.

"I've been looking for you and Harry ever since I found out about James and Lily," Remus admonished quietly, "Why didn't you come to me? I would have helped you with anything you needed."

"Well, I didn't want to implicate you," Sirius explained, and went on when he got a puzzled look, "Dumbledore had reason to suspect that I betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort. I didn't, I swear, it was Peter."

Sirius went on to explain what had happened, with the aid of much fortifying firewhiskey, and then to apologise for suspecting the werewolf of being a spy. Remus brushed off the apology, and a brief silence ensued. Before things could become too awkward, the cry of a baby interrupted their conversation.

"Was that Harry?" asked Remus, as the two moved from the kitchen to the living room.

"Er, no," Sirius replied, "I forgot to mention something before…"

"Who on earth is that?" asked Remus as Sirius plucked a tiny redhead from her make-shift bed on the floor.

"An orphan of the Ministry Battle," Sirius explained, "I sort of adopted her, like her dying mother wanted me to."

Sirius waited for his level-headed friend to question the sanity of his rash decision, but that never happened. Perhaps it was because Sirius's story had taken nearly as much 'liquid courage' to hear as to tell, but all Remus asked was, "Girl or boy?"

"Girl," replied Sirius, wondering why he wasn't receiving a lecture yet.

"What's her name?"

"Uh, her mum called her Jenny, I think, but I'm not really sure … I haven't really settled on anything," Sirius said, unwilling to admit that he had privately come up with a string of names and even tried some aloud.

"Oh, well, she's got to have a name," Remus pointed out, "We'd best put our heads together right now, and come up with something good before she's convinced her name is 'baby'."

"Er, what have you got in mind?" Sirius asked hesitantly, not quite sure how to take the odd behaviour Remus was exhibiting.

"Well, I rather like Cassiopeia," Remus said, "I always used to feel bad for her when my mum would tell me about the Gods hanging her upside down in the sky."

"Cassiopeia? Isn't that more the sort of name my family would push for?" asked Sirius, handing off the baby to Remus and settling onto the floor next to where Harry was playing with a stack of blocks.

Remus shrugged, "You do better then," he said.

"How about 'Star'?" he offered, only half sarcastically. A name that mocked his family's tradition rather appealed to Sirius.

"Star? Isn't it a little bit bigheaded to call a kid 'Star'?"

"Well, if 'Star' and 'Cassiopeia' are being contested, what else have you got?" Sirius asked, a bit put out that Remus didn't like the name, since Sirius had nearly been settled on it the day before.

"We could do the obvious and call her 'Lily', for Harry's mum," Remus said, seeming to sober a little at the thought of his dead friends. "Then again, perhaps it's a bit soon for that sort of thing, just yet."

"How about 'Ginger', then?" Sirius offered, thinking that he liked the name quite a bit, actually, though he had initially said it as a joke, because of the kid's red hair.

"Why not both? She could be "Star Ginger" or "Ginger Star"," Remus suggested sarcastically.

"How about all four?" Sirius said with a laugh, "Cassiopeia Star Lillian Ginger Black has a nice ring, don't you think?"

"Why stop there? Why give her just one last name?" asked Remus, "Call her Black-Potter, since we'll be raising her and Harry together. They can be almost like brother and sister."

"Shouldn't you be included, too?" asked Sirius, beginning to laugh, "Black-Lupin-Potter!"

"Am I included, really?" asked Remus, suddenly looking quite sombre.

"Well, as I see it, we've both lost the rest of our families, save each other and the kid," Sirius replied, "I think it would just make sense to stick together at this point. We can raise the munchkins between us, and that way we've a chance of doing it okay."

"I'd like that," Remus said quietly, overwhelmed by the feeling of having his best friend and near-brother back on his side.

"But here's the deal breaker," Sirius said, leaning in close to Remus, who was still holding the baby and sitting on the couch just above Sirius and Harry on the floor, "You're on diaper duty for a while. It's been my job for two weeks now, and I'm thoroughly sick of it."

"I think I can handle that," Remus replied with a grin.

"So you say before you've realised just how much poop two tiny individuals can produce in a day."

**A/N: Okay, I must admit, I *heart* the end of this chapter, and the last line makes me giggle, because I am a nerd like that. Thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 3: What Came of an Adoption

**Chapter Three: What Comes of an Adoption **

Cass Black had always known that she wasn't Sirius Black's daughter, any more than she was really related to Uncle Moony or Harry. Still, he had raised her, and so, for all practical intents and purposes, she was his little girl, and had been for as long as she could remember.

Tucked in small wooden box that she took everywhere, she even had the papers to prove it, unequivocally and legally. Nine and a half years ago, one Sirius Orion Black had adopted his godson, Harry James Potter, following the tragic demise of the boy's parents, Lily and James Potter, Sirius's best friends.

He had done it as an extra safeguard on his right to keep the small boy when the wizarding public started to call for Harry's removal to a 'safer' home, a number of which had been offered up by the wealthiest and oldest families in the wizarding world. Sirius had never intended to officially become a father to his best friend's son, but the situation had demanded it. All Sirius could really do was vow that Harry would know his first father well, even though Harry was really too young to ever remember James Potter on his own.

On the same day that Harry gained a father, so did a nameless orphan girl, scarcely six months old at the time. Sirius Black officially adopted Baby Girl of Unknown Parentage after waiting the requisite three weeks for someone to claim the child as their own. Once she was his, he had given her a name (or perhaps more accurately, a whole string of names) that would later make the girl wish he'd stuck with Baby Girl of Unknown Parentage. As soon as she was old enough to insist, Baby Girl had required her family address her only as Cass Black. They had all, thankfully, respected that wish, and never looked back, which was rather remarkable, given the amount of looking back they tended to do.

Padfoot and Moony were very concerned about the pair forgetting their first parents and what they had sacrificed for their children. They told both children endless stories about Harry's parents, and Padfoot had shared as much as he knew about Cass's mum. That wasn't much more than the fact that her eyes had been brown, her hair blonde and that the young woman had died in an attempt to save her daughter. So Harry and Cass had always known the truth and spoken of it openly and yet, in reality, it was irrelevant. Their family was a bit unusual, but they were all fiercely dedicated to each other.

Often, Cass thought, a little guiltily, that she was glad to be living with Padfoot and Harry and Moony, wherever they happened to be living opposed to being the daughter of a young, unknown witch who had a job at the Ministry, or at least a reason to have been there one day nearly a decade ago. She wouldn't say that she was glad her mother had been killed, but she really couldn't imagine loving some strange woman more than her adoptive family. Couldn't imagine living with anyone who wasn't Padfoot or Uncle Moony or Harry… and she really couldn't imagine never knowing them.

Of course, there were some advantages to living with your birth parents that Cass did sort of regret not having in a vague kind of way. She didn't look like anyone she knew, what with the red hair and freckles that made her stand out against the brown and black haired males in her family, and marked her as distinctly different. She didn't have anything that could be considered a family heirloom, or even a family history. And they had spent a lot of time drifting around the world, but they never really made many friends because Padfoot and Moony were so concerned with keeping Harry's identity and location a secret.

That was lonely, sometimes, especially when their little family split up in order to be less conspicuous. She missed her family members desperately when Harry was with Uncle Moony and she was with Padfoot or the other way around, or when they were both with one of their two parental figures and the other one was somewhere else.

But on the plus side, Cass rather liked the excuse to always be trying something new with her long hair that was red when she let it alone, but generally several rainbow hues away from that. Harry's hair was always long, so that it covered the distinctive scar on his forehead, but the colour changed almost as often as Cass's. The girl doubted very much that regular parents would be okay with that sort of thing, judging by the weary acceptance Moony tolerated it with.

Uncle Moony was her barometer of normalcy. He was really her only window into the world of regular people, because Padfoot was so unusual and she knew few others. It wasn't like Uncle Moony tried to put normal limits on their roving lives, but more that he noticed when their lives weren't normal. Sometimes he winced; sometimes he just shook his head ruefully. Either way, Cass liked to know which parts of their lifestyle were unusual by non-Padfoot standards, since her adoptive father's concept of reality tended to fall precisely in line with his ideas on how things would be if left up to him. Bedtimes were rarely mentioned, let alone enforced. They had to eat out in order to get anything resembling a home-cooked meal. Teasing someone was an acceptable way of expressing a wealth of other emotions for them. Schooling was piece-meal and largely based on whatever Harry or Cass happened to be curious about at a given moment. Schedules didn't really exist. Boundaries were never discussed, and therefore never crossed. Cass hadn't even had a real, fixed birthday for many years.

From the moment she started living with Padfoot until about five years previously, they had had a party for her approximately once a year, which involved cake and presents and the changing of their estimate of her age. However, because they generally just chose to have the party when one of them got up and decided that it would be a good day for it, Cass remembered one year when they had celebrated her birthday three times within six months. Even she, at about six, knew that that was too much, and had been eager to find a fixed day that belonged exclusively to her. Harry had actually been the one who had suggested that Cass needed a birthday of her own, and Padfoot and Moony had agreed that the two children should pick out a day.

After much thought and deliberation, they had settled on August 2nd as Cass's birthday, mostly because the day that she had come to live with them was much too sad a day to celebrate on. They had considered making Harry's birthday hers too, but had concluded that birthdays were for the individual, and really could not be effectively shared. As a sort of compromise, they had chosen a day near Harry's, but with time to recuperate allowed for. For the last four years, they had always held a party on the day in between Harry and Cass's birthdays, and today would make the fifth year in a row, when the four celebrated Harry's eleventh and Cass's tenth birthday.

But just then, that wasn't what Cass was really concerned about. She was sitting frowning into the distance, twining a strand of pink hair around her finger, considering the fact that in one short month she would be losing her best friend to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Cass could barely believe that they soon wouldn't be living entirely inseparable from each other as they always had. In the last two or three years particularly, they had scarcely been apart for more than a week in one stretch. Once Sirius had inherited this carefully hidden island upon his mother's death, they hadn't felt the need to move around so much in the name of security. Cass also thought that maybe Padfoot and Uncle Moony were simply getting a bit less wary as time rolled on and no one seemed to be taking any undue interest in Harry's whereabouts. They'd spent even more time together as a family the closer Harry got to his eleventh birthday; this coming separation was a very scary prospect.

Cass sat staring out the window of the bedroom she and Harry always occupied when they were living on their island. Sure, there had been brief times when she had been with Moony or Padfoot and Harry had been with the other, sometimes for as long as a week, and always separated by thousands of miles. Yet none of that was the same, because Cass had always been able to count on seeing Harry soon. In fact, they had all lived by their whims, even the more serious minded Moony. If they wanted to take a trip to Paris for a while, that was fine because Sirius's family had an old townhouse there, and Harry's had an apartment. If they were getting sick of island life, they could pop over for an extended stay somewhere in England. There was enough money in the Black and Potter families and enough property worldwide that having somewhere to stay was never an issue. Padfoot didn't work, so he was always free to go, and though Moony tried very hard to maintain a steady job, few people wanted to hire a werewolf, so he was often around as well. That was particularly great when Cass felt like skiing for a weekend and Harry wanted to take in a Quidditch match or two.

But now their whole way of life was going to have to change. There could be no more spur of the moment trips or living for a month in some exotic location for Harry when he was expected to be in school ten months of the year, and Cass knew that it wouldn't be the same without him.

Life was going to be lonely with only Padfoot and Moony around, and no one her age to play with. Padfoot was sometimes nearly a kid himself, and had no issue pranking or frolicking like the most juvenile of individuals, but sometimes Cass wished that they did live a more rooted sort of life. It would be easier to make friends if they were in any given place (excluding their private island) for more than a couple of months.

But it wasn't like Cass had ever needed any other friends before now. Harry and Cass had been best friends all their lives, and were closer than even most siblings were. But what if that all changed when Harry didn't _have_ to be friends with her anymore? What if he met people he liked better than her, once there were actually other people his age around to meet? And even if Harry wasn't inclined to be best friends with some new person, wouldn't the fact that he would be spending so much time with other people mean that he would grow closer to them than he was to her?

Cass's head began to spin. It was all just so confusing and complicated, and she just wished that it didn't have to happen so soon.

Just then, Harry came bounding up to Cass, shaking sand out of his shaggy blue hair. "Hey, guess what? I heard Padfoot and Uncle Moony talking about our party, and they said that we're going to have another race!"

"Really? We haven't done that in a while," Cass commented with little enthusiasm.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, giving the girl a strange look.

"It's just… we've only got a month left," she sighed, looking up at Harry with tears in her soft brown eyes.

"A month until what?" asked Harry, though he thought he might know.

"Until you go away and leave me here all alone," Cass accused, wiping her eyes angrily.

"Oh, Cass, don't worry about that," Harry encouraged, "It'll only be a few months."

Cass just glared at him until he was forced to sigh and admit to her, "Okay, so they're going to be very long, lonely months for us both, but when they're over, you'll be at Hogwarts, as well, and things can go back to how they are now!"

"What if you make new friends and forget all about me?" she asked, her voice small.

"That will never happen," Harry assured her solemnly. "I might make new friends at school, but you'll always be special. You'll always be Cass and I'll always be Harry and we'll always belong together, in the end. After all, it's always been you and me when it counts, hasn't it? You won't get rid of me that quickly, you'll see."

And then he grinned and Cass couldn't help but smile back, even though she couldn't quite believe him, even though she somehow knew that his words were not to be.

But for that day, and as they celebrated their birthdays the next, Cass managed to forget that they wouldn't always be able to drop everything so they could create an elaborate scavenger hunt that stretched across the globe, as they were doing in honour of turning another year older. It was impossible to be glum as she and Padfoot toured through Rome, Paris and a dozen other places collecting odd souvenirs, racing to beat Moony and Harry back to the island. In the end, it was a tie, like it most often was, but Cass fell heir to several t-shirts with the names of places splashed across them, so she felt like the winner.

The cake and piles of presents for the pair of them helped with that, as well. But in the end, it was Harry's present that made Cass think that the future she'd been trying to forget might turn out okay eventually.

"Hey," he said as she was getting ready for bed rather late, even by Padfoot's lax standards. "It's now officially your birthday."

"Yay!" she replied with a grin, "Present time!"

Harry grinned and tossed the girl a small, brightly wrapped box. She tore back the wrapper, and revealed a simple silver ring, made of small star shapes linked together with their names etched on the inside, on a silver chain. She gasped and threw her arms around Harry. "Thanks!" she cried.

"I've got one the same," he told her with a grin, seeming almost shy, and producing his own necklace from beneath his shirt, "Because you and I are a set, we belong with each other, just like the rings."

Cass laughed and hugged him again before punching his arm for being so mushy. That was when Padfoot's godson reappeared and the two got into a furious pillow fight that ended only when Moony stuck his head in to suggest they get at least a little sleep. Reluctantly, the pair fell into their beds, Cass finally reassured that nothing would change between Harry and her, even when he was at school next fall.

ooOoo

On September 1st, Cass was trying desperately to remember how it felt to be sure of her friendship with Harry.

It didn't help that Harry was bouncing around the house like some sort of demented firecracker, chattering about finding more secret passages in the castle then the Marauders ever did, and making a million plans that made Uncle Moony wince as he rushed after the boy, packing the things he'd need at school and trying to keep as much contraband out of the school trunk as possible. All the while, Padfoot kept trying to turn Harry's hair colours with him none the wiser. Cass might have laughed at the spectacle her family made, but her worry over the coming separation gnawed at her stomach.

Finally, as Harry was rushing about, saying goodbye to various features of his most permanent home, Cass couldn't take it anymore. She slipped out the back door and hurried down the path through the trees until she reached the hammock that was stretched in a shady spot in nearly the exact centre of the island. There she lay down and let the tears come. She cried earnestly for nearly ten minutes before a gentle hand came to rest on her shoulder and the hammock swayed as a large body sat beside her. A moment later she had thrown herself in Uncle Moony's arms, and he held her while she cried.

"There, there, darling," he murmured, "He'll miss you, too. He's just excited right now, and like that great idiot Padfoot, he won't realise how lonely he'll be until he's actually lonely."

Cass sniffed, not willing to admit that she was partially comforted by Moony's reminder. "Uncle Moony, it's just so _sucky_."

"I know, darling, I know," he assured her, "But we'll all three of us get through it together. Are you ready to go back?"

"Yes… but maybe I should wait a minute," Cass replied, scrubbing at her face, "I really don't want to make Harry as sad as I am, not when he's so happy to be going."

"That's my brave girl," Moony said as he gently wiped her tears and then slung an arm around her shoulders as they ambled slowly back towards the house and the two dark haired wizards who were still bouncing off the walls in fits of nervous energy.

ooOoo

A few minutes later, Remus had managed to fight Harry's belongings into a semblance of order and was standing with his family, nearly ready to depart for the train station. But then he looked down at the little girl he loved so much and realised that she wouldn't make it through a long goodbye at the train station. It was going to be hard enough for Sirius and Remus to say goodbye, and they were adults. So he drew a breath and squatted down at Harry's eye level.

"Well, I'm proud of you, Harry, you know that. I know that you'll be a credit to Padfoot and your mother and father and I. Be good," he said, causing Harry to look around at him in surprise, sensing a goodbye coming on sooner than it should have. "I'm afraid Cass and I will have to say our goodbyes right now. We're going to be late for a little trip I'd had planned."

Harry looked a little uneasy. He clearly hadn't been thinking of goodbyes this morning, even though the prospect had been looming over the rest of them. "Oh, alright," he mumbled, "Well… goodbye. I'll see you at Christmas, I guess."

"Yeah, at Christmas," Cass parroted bravely, "I love you, Harry. Be good like Uncle Moony. I don't want everyone catching on to us before I've had a chance to have some fun!"

"Oh, don't worry about it, I'll lay low for the year," Harry vowed with a devious grin. Cass and Moony burst out laughing. "What? Don't think I can do it?"

"No," Cass said bluntly, "You're Harry Potter, remember?"

"Oh… right," Harry said with another frown. Padfoot and Moony had told them he was a very famous wizard, but Harry tended to forget. Before he could get too melancholy, Padfoot joined them, ruffling his godson's hair in an attempt to distract him from the fact that he was turning the raven locks an unnatural yellow shade. "Give it up, Paddy," he said as soon as the older wizard had stepped back from him. Harry dug out the wand that he technically shouldn't have known how to use and turned his hair back to its natural shade. "If it's just me and you at the station, there's no way you'll be able to send me off to school looking like a circus clown."

"Well, it won't be for lack of trying," he promised ominously, kissing Cass on the cheek before stepping back to allow Harry to give her a fierce hug and a murmured goodbye.


	5. Chapter 4: What Came of Green Hair

**Chapter Four: What Came of Green Hair **

On some level, Harry was glad that Cass was off on some mysterious trip with Moony rather than beside him as he and Padfoot said their goodbyes on the platform. If she'd been there, he would have been very tempted to hold her hand, and really, what self-respecting eleven-year-old saviour of the wizarding world would want that on his first day of school? Even so, he might have risked the ruin to his reputation for Cass.

Which meant he was glad that she had abandoned him. Really, really glad.

Yeah. Glad…

Harry forced himself to look round at the people bustling by at the train station. They were all wizarding families, with kids boarding the scarlet steam engine, and kids clambering around trunks and kids saying goodbyes to their families… more wizarding children than he'd ever seen in his life, except perhaps a time or two in Diagon Alley. But Harry didn't spend a lot of time among other wizards, especially not when his hair was its natural colour and his glasses weren't charmed to change his eye colour.

And all of them would already know his name, and his story and his scar. Harry shuddered, and looked around for something to distract him from how awkwardly recognizable he felt all of a sudden.

A group of people caught Harry's attention largely because the five children - four boys and a girl, smaller than Cass - all had exactly the same flaming red hair as the woman who kept such a fierce eye on them, a shade of red that seemed familiar, even though it was so vividly unique. The woman, who could only be their mother, watched the crowds around them warily and kept her kids close by her side. The five seemed to take her hovering with a lot more tolerance than Harry would have expected. Of course, Harry had never had a mother that he could remember, so for all he knew, maybe they all hovered like that, and maybe you just got used to it after a while.

Still, though other mothers on the platform had tears in their eyes, and though a few held on tightly to younger children, no one else seemed to feel that children as old as the red headed boys clearly were, needed to be kept on so short a leash. Perhaps the redheads were troublemakers. The thought nearly caused Harry to smile, largely because one couldn't live with Padfoot or Cass for so many years without developing a soft spot for mischief-makers of all kinds and a certain appreciation for their art.

Except, the oldest one, a stocky boy with horn-rimmed glasses and a serious face, didn't look like one for pranks. As Harry watched, he was lecturing his small sister as the girl looked back at him solemnly. She nodded her head at the oldest boy, clinging to her mother's side the entire time. The younger brothers, the identical pair, though, were grinning and looked like they maybe knew something about trouble. The youngest boy, well, he mostly just looked apprehensive and occasionally a bit exasperated with either his brothers or his mother. Harry was betting that the twins were teasing him about something; they had that sort of look on their faces. Harry recognised it from Padfoot…

Which brought Harry's attention back to his godfather, and the goodbye that he had been trying to avoid. "So," Harry said quietly, "Did you manage to get anything interesting past Uncle Moony?"

"Oh, one or two things," Padfoot said airily, dropping a stuffed sack of who knew what into Harry's arms with a wicked grin. "Just as soon as I can manage, I'll have Cass send a few more things on. I don't think Moony will be quite so diligent watching her mail as mine."

"Great," Harry replied with a glimmer of real enthusiasm. Maybe he wasn't as naturally mischievous as Padfoot or Cass, but he didn't want to be without the means to play a prank if he felt the urge to. "Tell Cass I'll write tons."

"I will," Padfoot assured him, "And don't worry about our girl; I'll keep her so busy she'll forget all about your ugly self."

"Hey!" protested Harry jokingly, "I'm hurt. Now get out of here, I've got to get on the train and find some normal people to hang out with."

"Normal people," Padfoot mimicked with a comic shudder and a disgusted look, "Clearly I haven't instilled in you just what it takes to live up to the Marauder legend."

Harry grinned at his godfather one last time before turning for the train. He didn't get more than a step or two before he turned back and tackled Padfoot, hugging him and telling him he'd miss him one more time. Then Padfoot left, and Harry stood on the train steps a moment, watching him go.

"Is your hair always that colour?" asked a voice.

"Or did someone pull one over on you?" asked a second.

Harry turned to see the red haired twins looking at him with matching grins. "What?" he asked, before he caught on. "Oh. What colour did the great idiot turn it this time?"

"Well…" began one, cocking his head appraisingly.

"I'd say it's somewhere between blue and green," suggested the second.

"Rather closer to green," argued the first, "Do you need us to fix it for you?"

"I'm sure we could figure out how to do it pretty quickly," reassured the second twin.

"That's okay," Harry said, digging around in his pocket for his brand new wand, but coming up empty, "I've a ton of experience with this particular spell. My Godfather thinks it's the funniest joke in the world to turn someone's hair a weird colour and see how long it takes them to notice. Really, I'm just grateful that he didn't pick pink. Cass- his daughter- she would have turned my hair pink with out bating an eye."

"Sounds like a trouble maker," said one twin with a grin that the other one mirrored.

"Oh, yeah," Harry sighed, talking to the twins over his shoulder as he walked into the compartment where his wand rested inside the trunk Padfoot had helped him stow, "That's Cass, alright." Harry threw the sack of prank supplies Padfoot had smuggled out of the house for him carelessly on a seat, not noticing when the bag spilled open and not seeing the grins that the twins exchanged when they saw what the sack contained. Harry rooted around, looking for the brand new wand he'd got a few weeks ago, feeling rather excited to use it. Sure, he'd been allowed to use his father's old wand for the last couple years, because even Uncle Moony thought that Harry might need the edge, eventually, but this was different. This was his own, personal wand. It was exciting.

So, Harry grinned as he cast the spell, and put his wand away, scraping his hand through his messy, longish hair, grateful that it had returned to its normal black shades. He turned to say something to one of the twins, but suddenly noticed their expressions, with their eyes focused on his forehead. Weird.

"Blimey," whispered one twin.

"You're-"

"Harry Potter!" they finished together.

"Er, yeah," Harry said uncomfortably, and then pushed on awkwardly when it seemed that the pair was content to just stare at him. "What are your names?"

"I'm Fred Weasley," said the first twin.

"And I'm George," added the second. Neither older boy seemed to realise how ill at ease Harry felt, but they did manage to pull themselves together a bit more after that. When they left moments later, Harry thought that they could maybe be friends, if they ever got over their weird reaction to him.

Harry was still thinking about them, when he noticed the redheaded family once again, this time just outside his window. Harry watched them as he heard their conversation float in through the open window.

"Mum!" cried one of the twins, "Guess who we just met!" Harry shrunk back from the window so they wouldn't catch him spying. Still, he didn't stop listening in. He hadn't really spent much time with wizards outside those in his small family, and he was fascinated.

"Never mind that, Fred, where on earth did you to disappear to?" she asked anxiously, "You were here one minute and gone the next!"

"Sorry, mum," said a twin.

"But really, you'll never guess who we met!"

"Oh, alright then, who?" she asked, seeming a bit preoccupied with glancing round to make sure all her brood were accounted for.

"Harry Potter!" they revealed together.

"Really?" asked the youngest boy, seeming curious, and very eager to distract his mother from her dedicated scrubbing of his nose.

"Yeah, his hair was green at first," George said.

"He said his godfather had changed the colour," Fred explained eagerly.

"Like, for a joke, you know," George elaborated, nearly tripping over his brother's words.

"Poor boy," sympathized the mother, "Did you fix it for him, boys?"

"We offered," George assured her.

"But he said he could do it himself," said the other twin.

"Well, he was probably embarrassed, having his godfather play a joke on him on the first day of school," Mrs Weasley told her sons, "I hope he finds someone to help him before too many students see him."

"No, mum, he really knew the right spell!" protested George.

"Really?" asked the youngest boy, sounding nervous now, "He knows how to do real magic?"

"Well, changing things different colours isn't that hard, really," Fred conceded.

"And he said that turning people's hair funny colours is his godfather's favourite joke, so I guess that's probably a really common spell at his house," George went on.

"Clearly, though, he's been engaging in underage magic at home," the oldest red-head said disapprovingly, "And besides being illegal, it's highly inappropriate, especially in someone that the wizarding community will undoubtedly look to for leadership in the future."

"Gosh, Perce, what'd you do with that shiny Prefect's badge? Wear it or shove it up your-"

"George!" scolded the mother, sounding scandalized.

"Sorry, mum," chorused both twins, apparently for good measure.

"Oh, don't you two 'sorry, mum' me! Just promise me you won't get that poor boy caught up in any of your nonsense! He's probably got enough on his mind without getting detention as well," she chastised, even as she caught a hold of the youngest boy again for another go at cleaning his face.

He struggled as his brother's laughed, but was finally released. Then the fierce matriarch marshalled her four boys into order in front of her, looking very serious as the younger child clung to her skirts. "Okay, darlings, you'll have to get on the train now. Percy, look out for the twins, and Ron. Fred, George, you look out for yourselves and your brothers, yeah? And Ron, stay out of trouble and mind your brothers."

Mrs Weasley waited as all four boys nodded solemnly, and then went on. "Please write me often, everyone. Percy, I want a full update every couple of days, alright? I'm counting on you."

"Of course, mother," Percy replied quickly, "Don't worry about a thing. I promise I'll watch out for them."

Then, with hugs and kisses, the little redheaded mother watched her boys board the train and kept watching as they pulled away, her youngest still clinging to her side silently. The whole scene struck Harry as a bit odd, but he soon shrugged it off. For all he knew, every normal family acted that way, though he couldn't picture Padfoot or Moony in Mrs. Weasley's role, though maybe he could see Moony acting like that Percy kid, depending on the circumstance.

"Is there room in here?" asked a quiet voice a moment later, after the compartment door slid open. "Everywhere else is full up."

"Oh, yeah, of course," Harry said, looking up at the youngest redhead boy, "Have a seat."

"Thanks," he said, yanking his trunk after him. "I'm Ron Weasley. I think you met my brothers before? Fred and George?"

"Oh, yeah," Harry replied, feeling a bit stupid for not knowing what to say. "They offered to fix my hair after my godfather turned it green."

"It's just as well you didn't let them," Ron told Harry as he sat, "They'd probably just have turned it purple."

Harry nodded awkwardly. This whole making-friends, small-talk thing was harder than he would have thought. Perhaps Harry really hadn't appreciated having a built in friend in Cass as he should have all those years. That was the advantage of knowing someone since before you could remember; there was no weird getting to know them phase. Harry had always known Cass.

"So..." began Ron, only to trail off awkwardly. A moment later, though, he turned to Harry with a very earnest expression "Look, are you really Harry Potter? 'Cause the twins said you were, but they like to joke around and I thought maybe-"

"Er, yeah, I'm Harry Potter," Harry said, feeling he could relate greatly to this youngest brother's fear of trickery. Sometimes it was hard dealing with a known prankster non-stop. "I don't blame you for wondering, though. Those brothers of yours seem a bit mad."

"Well... yeah, a bit mad, sometimes," Ron admitted reluctantly.

Harry instantly saw his mistake, and rushed to reassure the Weasley boy before him that he had nothing against the troublesome duo. "It must be great, though, having older brothers. You've got three, right?"

"Well, five...and I guess it's alright, most of the time. But really, all it means is a lot of hand-me-downs and having to eat everyone else's favourite foods and do everyone else's favourite things and what not. Sometimes I've wished I was an only child... must be nice to be one, huh?" Ron asked, looking enviously at Harry.

"Er... well, I'm not really sure," he said, frowning a bit, "I'm not exactly an only child...exactly."

"What'd you mean? Didn't your parents... well, die when you were a baby?" Ron was blushing as he stumbled over the awkward question, so Harry chose not to take offence.

"Yes, but my godfather raised me, and he's got a daughter who's a bit younger than me. Cass and I were raised together, between him and my uncle Moony," Harry explained, "It's not exactly like having a sister, but I'm not really an only child, either. It's more like having a best friend who's around all the time."

"That's kind of cool," Ron said, "Like having a family, but having an out as well."

"I never really thought of it that way," Harry said, with a frown. He didn't really think that the idea of family was compatible with the idea of wanting an escape, but, then, he wasn't the youngest boy in a large family. If he were, maybe he'd want an 'out' sometimes, too. Nevertheless, Harry tried to steer the conversation in safer directions. "So, you've got brothers, but do you have any sisters?"

"Yeah, one- well, two, I guess," Ron said with a frown, "But not really..."

Harry's heart sank. There didn't seem to be any safe topics when it came to conversation with this stranger. He considered abandoning the attempt but instead forged ahead, thinking that maybe there was a simple explanation like there had been about him not really being an only child. "What do you mean, 'not really'?"

"Well, I had one once, when I was very small," Ron revealed with a frown, "I have another little sister, Annie, now. She's just about eight. The other one, Ginny, she would have been ten, I guess. But she's gone now."

"That's...awful," Harry said, feeling that blunt honesty was the only way to survive this conversation with any chance of becoming friends; he brazened on. "It really sucks, actually. Do you remember Ginny at all?"

"No, not really," Ron said, "Mostly, my mum doesn't like to talk about her, though she tells stories occasionally, not that there are many."

"That's even worse, having someone who belongs in your family, but isn't there, and not even being able to remember them on your own," Harry lamented, suddenly feeling as though maybe he could make friends on his own, at least with Ron. They shared a sort of morbid common ground. "Like, I know a ton about my mum and dad, because Padfoot and Moony talk about them all the time, but I don't really know them, you know?"

"Yeah," Ron said, almost smiling, "Second-hand memories, right?"

"Yeah," Harry said, smiling, too. "I sometimes think it's more frustrating than just not knowing at all. Like it's just better not to know what you're missing out on. And I guess there are probably some things I'm lucky not to remember."

"Like what?" frowned the redhead.

"Oh, well... like the night Voldemort killed my parents," said Harry, suddenly realising how odd a topic of conversation this was to have with someone he'd just met.

"You said his name!" cried Ron, flinching and paling significantly, and rather impressively given how fair his skin had already been under the freckles.

"What? Oh, yeah... Padfoot and Moony always did, and so Cass and I do..." Harry trailed off, "It's hard to remember that most people don't like hearing it. It's hard to remember that normal people do things differently from my family. Like, we've never really lived in any one place. We've got seven houses where we sometimes stay in different cities and countries, and a bunch of flats and whatnot, and we still live out of hotels half the time. Most people have an actual home."

"Well, yeah, I guess," Ron said, seeming a bit in awe of Harry's lifestyle, "We call our house 'The Burrow'."

"That's cool," Harry said enthusiastically, "And you've probably spent your whole life there, right?"

"Yeah," Ron said, sounding as if he wasn't sure if he should be defensive about that fact, in light of Harry's international upbringing.

"See? And I bet you've got your own bedroom full of your own stuff, right?" Harry said, a tad enviously.

"Well, yeah, but don't you have, like, seven?" asked Ron incredulously.

"Kind of, but it's not the same. None of those rooms are really mine. They're just places with beds in which I sometimes sleep. Mostly, I just have a duffle bag."

"You're a weird kid, you know that, Harry?" Ron asked him.

"Yeah... Moony thinks I'm more mature than I should be because Padfoot is such a kid and he's the one who mostly raised me," Harry replied wisely, "And Cass and I spend a lot of time with adults, or alone, so I tend to give things more thought than really necessary. Sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry," Ron said, "I probably shouldn't have said that, anyway. It's just that I've never really met anyone like you before."

"I've never really met anyone like you, either, Ron," Harry confided, "Cass is the only friend I've ever had, and I've known her all my life. I'm rubbish at trying to talk to someone my own age that I didn't grow up with."

"You're not so bad," Ron told him. "At least, you could have been a lot worse, right?"

"How so?" asked Harry, frowning. He was pretty sure 'cripplingly awkward in social situations' was about the bottom wrung of desirable traits in a friend.

"Well, if I'd thought about it, I probably would have expected you to be kind of stuck up and arrogant," Ron admitted, "I guess you've got right to be. I mean, you're the Boy Who Lived, after all. You pretty much saved the world when you were a baby."

"Well, I guess, but it isn't like I remember anything about it, except some green light and an evil cackle. Besides," Harry revealed, "I've pretty much been living in hiding ever since that night. It's why we move around so much, and why this is the first time my hair's been its real colour in more than a year. And why I used to wear glasses that changed my eye colour. And why my godfather once took it into his head that I ought to wear hats and things that covered my scar for most of my childhood. I really only spend time with my family, and we don't dwell on that part of the past much. They certainly don't treat me like a hero or anything."

"Still, now that you're meeting people, they'll be impressed, right? We've all grown up hearing stories about how it was before, and what it meant when you defeated You-Know-Who, and all that. My little sister asked to hear the bedtime story about you practically every night last year," Ron maintained, "You could be real jerk, even if you're not used to being treated differently."

"I guess," Harry admitted, "But forget that, Ron. I've told you about growing up without a home, now it's your turn. What's it like to have older brothers?"

"Well," Ron said, seeming to look gloomy all of a sudden, picking at a hole in his jeans, "I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left- Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a Prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand and Percy's old rat."

Ron reached into his jacket and pulled out a fat grey rat, which was asleep. Harry frowned a bit, but his companion didn't seem to notice and just ploughed on with his rant.

"His name's Scabbers, and he's useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a Prefect, but they couldn't aff- I mean, I got Scabbers instead." Ron flushed, seeming embarrassed.

Harry vaguely registered that Ron was embarrassed by something, but he hadn't really been paying attention after the rat had come out of the pocket. "Oh, um, that's nice," he managed, though his expression said otherwise.

Ron looked a bit thrown off. Clearly that wasn't the reaction he was looking for. "It is?" he asked.

"Er...yeah. Wait, what?" Harry said, trying not to let his eyes fix on the small animal nestled on Ron's lap.

"Is something wrong, Harry?" asked Ron, looking apprehensive.

Harry considered lying, but in the end, he didn't want to spoil this first friendship so soon. "I just don't much like rats, is all."

"He won't bite or anything, I promise," Ron assured his friend earnestly, "Like I said he's really lazy, but he's just a harmless pet."

Harry took a deep breath and managed to master himself. "Harmless? Yes, I suppose so," he said, "Okay, then- Scabbers, was it?-nice to meet you." And Harry even managed to pet the creature half-heartedly on his head. After all, he was just a house pet, nothing more, whether he was a rodent or not. After having mastered his revulsion, Harry still felt that the rat was a topic best forgotten quickly and so asked a question he thought might elicit an enthusiastic response.

"So, you watch much Quidditch?"

And with that, the time until lunch quickly slid past. Harry didn't even realise how late it was getting until the compartment door slid open to reveal a witch and a cart full of sweets. "Anything off the cart, dears?" she asked.

Harry stood up and sized up the junk food with an expert eye. Padfoot had attempted to make him a special home-cooked farewell breakfast, but had, as usual, burnt it blacker than his family name, so Harry was quite hungry. He pulled down an arm load of assorted chocolate, grabbed a ton of pumpkin pasties and cauldron cakes and loaded up on pumpkin juice. He mostly steered clear of sugary sweets that wouldn't do much about filling him up, but he did buy a package of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. They were among his favourites, and he rarely resisted the temptation because he and Cass always had such fun trying to work out what the flavours were before they ate them. Harry thought that he and Ron could probably use another safe, mutually enjoyable topic now that they'd exhausted sports, and he hoped that the Beans would provide it.

Harry handed over his money, not batting an eye, even though it was a lot more than he usually spent on sweets at one time, even when he was buying for Cass as well. He shuffled back to his spot and dumped the lot of it on a free seat before noticing Ron's stare.

"Hungry, are you?"

"Starving!" Harry replied, ripping into a pumpkin pasty. "Usually Padfoot doesn't pretend to know how to cook, but this morning he made breakfast."

"What did he make?" asked Ron, rooting around in his bag.

"I couldn't tell you," Harry replied, downing a cauldron cake.

"Didn't you have time to eat?" asked Ron, looking sympathetic now.

"Oh, I had time. Padfoot put a plate of breakfast right in front of me. It's just that, seeing it didn't really help with the identification process, since it was all just sort of lumpy and grey."

"Why didn't your Uncle Moony make you something?" asked Ron, sounding puzzled as he pulled out a lumpy package from his bag.

"The only good thing about Uncle Moony's cooking is that he never tries to make us eat it," replied Harry, now pausing in his food-shovelling to down some juice.

"You can't mean that no one cooks at your place?" asked Ron, looking scandalized, "What do you eat?"

"Mostly stuff like this," Harry said, gesturing to the pile of sweets beside him. It was still enormous, despite the fairly impressive amount he had already consumed. "Or sometimes Cass and I will try mucking about, and we usually do better than either of the adults. And we eat out a lot, or order room service when we stay in hotels."

"That must be really cool," Ron said as he unwrapped a stack of sandwiches. "We hardly ever eat out. My mum loves to cook," he explained, examining his snack and sighing, "But she always forgets that I hate corned beef."

"If you're not going to eat that," Harry offered, "I'll swap you for some of this stuff."

"You don't want this," Ron said quickly, "It's all dry and stuff. She hasn't got much time, with so many of us."

"How do you know I won't like it? I've never tried corned beef before," Harry stated, "Just go on and have a pasty. I bought way too much anyway."

Ron eventually gave in, and soon the boys had eaten a good way into the pile. Harry ended up finishing off three of Ron's sandwiches, much to the other boy's surprise. For his part, Harry couldn't believe that Ron had passed on them, especially since he was fairly certain the bread was homemade. Once the worst of their hunger was abated, their attention turned to chocolate frog cards.

They spent some time trading them, and trying to come up with things to do with the four extra Dumbledore cards they had apiece. They tried a sort of card tossing game that ended abruptly when Harry hit Hedwig's cage, startling the owl his friend Hagrid had got him for his birthday. In the lull that followed, Harry dug out the bag of Bertie Bott's Beans that he had purchased earlier, and offered them to Ron.

"I dunno, mate," Ron said, "You've got to be careful with those. You never know what you're getting with them. George swears he got a booger-flavoured one, once."

From there, they traded Bean horror stories, while nibbling on a few of the safer looking ones themselves. By the time they'd eaten as much as they wanted to, the train had taken them far out into the countryside. Harry was just watching a line of trees whip by when there was a knock on the door.

At Harry's call to come in, a tearful boy about their age entered. "You haven't seen a toad have you?"

When Harry and Ron assured him that they hadn't, the boy looked even more upset. "I've gone and lost him already!"

"He'll turn up, I'm sure," Harry said bracingly. The boy nodded sadly and left with a mumbled thank you.

"I don't know why he's so fussed," Ron said, "If I'd brought a toad I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't really talk."

Harry eyed the rat slumbering on his friends lap. He could deal with the rodent, but that didn't mean he liked him much…

"He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," said Ron in disgust. "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look…"

Ron rummaged in his trunk until he found a chipped and battered wand with something silvery glinting out the end.

"Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway-"

Just as Ron raised his wand, the compartment door slid open to reveal the toad-less boy and a girl already dressed in Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

"We already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl wasn't listening. She was staring at the wand Ron was still holding out.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then."

She sat abruptly, looking on with avid interest. Ron swallowed nervously and began to speak. Almost as soon as he had opened his mouth, the girl began to frown.

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow," said Ron, as the girl looked on sceptically. "Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow!" And as Ron stabbed his wand at his pet, Harry waved his covertly and performed the familiar spell that made Scabber's fur go lemon-coloured.

The girl looked incredulous, but Ron looked out and out shocked. "I can't believe that worked!" they chorused together.

"That can't have been a real spell!" protested the girl, "I mean, I know that I'm new to magic, but still! I've memorised all the spells in all of our text books, and none of them sound at all like that. Are you playing some sort of joke? That's not very nice at all you know!"

The girl looked furious, but Ron looked as though he had suddenly clued in when the girl had suggested it was some sort of joke. At any rate, his eyes had dashed to Harry's hair and he had started to grin madly.

"Maybe it's some sort of advanced magic," Ron suggested, with a wink at Harry, "After all, I got it off my brothers, and they're in third year. I thought they were joking around, but it worked, didn't it?"

"Oh, so you're brothers are magical, too?" began the girl, clearly distracted, for the moment, "I don't know anyone else who is. I didn't even know about magic until I got my letter! No one is magic in my family at all, but I don't think that will hold me back too much. I've tried a few simple spells, and they've worked, but nothing like that colour change spell! I've been researching like mad all summer; I can't believe I didn't find anything at all like it. My name is Hermione Granger, by the way. What's yours?"

She said this all very fast.

Harry looked at Ron, who was clearly just as stunned and didn't seem to have learned all his texts by heart or spent the summer researching anything other than perhaps some Quidditch stats.

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron said, seeming afraid of answering but afraid not to, as well.

"Harry Potter," offered Harry, attempting a friendly grin that he knew probably looked a little weak. He was starting to really miss Cass's easy ability to chatter away with people the second they met them.

"Are you really?" she asked excitedly, and Harry was stupidly startled for a moment when she seemed to know him. "I've read all about you, of course. I got some extra books for reading, and you're in _Modern Magical History_, and _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ and _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century_."

"Am I?" asked Harry, "My uncle Moony has a copy of some of those that he used to teach me and my friend Cass out of, but he didn't show us the part about me."

"Wow, if it were me, I would have definitely looked it up!" said Hermione, "Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it really sounds like it's the best! Dumbledore was in that house, you know. I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be so bad, either! But I guess we'll just have to wait and find out. We should probably go find Neville's toad though. Bye!"

And a second later, Hermione was gone, taking the toad-less boy Neville with her. Ron turned to Harry the moment they were out of sight with a huge grin, holding up Scabbers.

"That was brilliant!" he exclaimed, "I can't believe you pulled that off! The look on her face when Scabbers turned yellow!"

Harry grinned, "Well, I just happen to know that spell really well…"

"Brilliant!"

"Look, it really wasn't that much. It's the easiest spell ever, really!" Harry replied quickly, "I'll show you…"

"Well, well, well, doesn't this look cozy?" sneered a voice from the doorway. A blonde boy had entered, flanked by two enormous friends. "People are saying Harry Potter is in this compartment. I suppose you're him?"

"Yes," said Harry, wondering if his instant dislike for the blonde stemmed from his recent exposure to a hated rodent. He could be predisposed to feel poorly about anyone he met right now or if the boy earned that all on his own. "Who are you?"

The stranger actually looked affronted, like Harry should already have known his name. But Ron jumped in before the intruders could respond to Harry's blunt question. "I'd bet anything he's a Malfoy," ground out the ginger, sounding like this was the supreme insult.

"Well, since you're clearly a Weasley brat, I doubt you have anything to bet," sneered Malfoy, "However, I am Draco Malfoy, latest in a long line of fine wizards from old families." After insulting Ron, Malfoy focused himself entirely on Harry, "Not that being from an old family is everything," continued the boy, darting his gaze back to Ron for a moment, "Some bloodlines run truer- and richer- than others."

"You know," Harry began thoughtfully, "I think you and I might have a relative or two in common." Ron gazed at Harry in horror, thinking that his companion was about to cross over to the 'dark side'. "My godfather, who raised me, is a Black. I think your family married into his, actually."

"My mother was a Black. If we're almost family, then you should certainly join me and my friends," Draco said with a certain smirk. "We have a compartment towards the back."

"Actually, having met you, I've just realised why Sirius disowned the whole of his family," Harry said nastily, "You're clearly just a bunch of snobs like Grandmother Black."

With that, Ron's grin returned, and Harry had to fight to keep the look of disdain on his features. The blonde collected himself after the unexpected affront, and replied, "Well, Potter, I'll give you this last chance to reconsider. Hogwarts can be a lot easier for people with the right sort of friends."

"I see what you're saying, Malfoy," Harry said, considering, "If you want to renounce your snobbery and join Ron and I, you're always welcome. You might have to leave the trolls behind, though." Harry shot the two thugs behind the blonde a grin that clearly confused them. "Family deserves a second chance, after all."

"How nice of you," he said with a sickly smile, "I'm sure you'll also be nice enough to share some of your sweets with us. We've eaten ours, you see."

Malfoy smirked as Big-and-Ugly on the right moved towards the piles of left-over pumpkin pasties. Harry was busily calculating his odds against the slimy trio, when one of the troll pair suddenly pulled his hand back, screeching.

As the troll-boy spun around, trying to shake Scabbers loose, Harry smiled. Perhaps he could come to appreciate the rat after all.


	6. Chapter 5: What Came of a Separation

**Chapter Five:**

**What Came of a Separation: **

**Selected Letters, Year One**

**AN: Just in case it isn't as obvious as it seems to me, anywhere there's a ' … ' it means that the letter continued, but isn't represented here. Similarly, this chapter doesn't contain every letter that Harry and Cass exchange, just those that help keep track of the plot. **

"_Sept 2__nd__,_

_Cass_,

_It was a long train ride, so I'm writing pretty late. I met some cool people, like these twins and their brother, Ron, who all have hair as red as yours is when you let it alone. Tell Padfoot that I ran into his cousin Narcissa's son. He's a right prat._

_Hagrid was there to meet the train, and brought us up to the castle across the lake. It's huge and I was lost even before the Sorting ceremony. I'm in Gryffindor, did I mention?_

_Anyway, I'm so tired, I can't think of anything else to tell you. I'm headed up to bed now._

_Love,_

_Harry"_

"_September 3rd,_

_Harry,_

_That letter was pathetic. Write a better one or I won't tell you about Uncle Moony's surprise._

_Cass"_

"_September 5th,_

_Sorry about that last letter. Hopefully this one will make up for it!_

_It has been a strange few days here. No matter what I'm doing, at least six people are staring at me and everyone whispers when I walk by. And, its like they all want to ask me something, but no one can just man up and do it. Sometimes I want to scream at them 'Okay, so I'm Harry Potter! What's the big deal, anyway?' _

_Except, of course, I know what the big deal is, so I guess I can't blame them for being curious. It's just frustrating and makes me feel sort of itchy. Anyway, it's mostly amazing being here._

_The castle is so much bigger than Padfoot and Uncle Moony made it sound. I am not so impressed by all their sneaking around and finding secret passages and short cuts. You have to know about six different short cuts just to get to Potions or Transfiguration on time. And trust me, those aren't classes you want to be late for._

_I think the potions master might have been on the receiving end of a Marauder's prank, though. He hated me before I even got to his class…_

…_Love, Harry"_

"_September 6th _

_Harry,_

_ I miss you as well, but maybe not as much as I thought I would. Uncle Moony's surprise has almost made up for the fact that you're away at school. The day you left, he moved us in to the Paris house and we set up the old classroom again, and he's been teaching me the fundamentals of magic since you left. It's like when we were little and he was teaching us to read and stuff, but only more fun because its _magic_ he's teaching me this time…_

…_love, Cass"_

"_September 12th,_

_Cass,_

_I just made the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and by accident! I'm going to be seeker this year, and all because…_

…_love,_

_Harry"_

"_September 14th,_

_Harry,_

_Maybe you'll be playing Quidditch this year, but you missed seeing the best match ever yesterday! It was incredible, Padfoot took me, and even Moony came along…_

…_love,_

_Cass"_

"_November 1st,_

_Cass,_

_You won't believe what's happened to me! _

_Do you remember that girl, Hermione, who I wrote you about back in September? Well, I think Ron and I are probably friends with her now. It was strange how it happened, but someone let a troll into the school last night..._

… _and so then Professor McGonagall gives Ron and me five points each, so we came out of it with more points than we had and we got to fight the troll. In the end, that was totally worth missing the chance to turn the Weasley twin's hair black and white like Ron and I were going to do at the feast. _

_Besides, Hermione could probably think up a way better prank than hair changing or Zonko's stuff, if I could figure out the right way to ask her. She's really brilliant and I think she's really warming up to Ron and me. At least she seems to be over the thing with the three headed dog…_

…_Love, Harry"_

"_November 2nd, _

_Harry,_

_All the cool things happen to you! You get to go to Hogwarts and play Quidditch as a first year and tangle with three headed dogs and trolls and everything!_

_ And while you're off doing all that, Uncle Moony has me studying the theory behind curses and charms I won't even cast for two or three more years. Magic lessons are definitely not what I thought they'd be. I'd probably give up, but I have to have something to occupy me. Every time dear old Paddy sees me sitting still for more than two seconds, he decides I'm in some sort of spiralling depression caused by your absence and takes it upon himself to entertain me. _

_ I've been to enough Quidditch games in the last couple months to actually become a bit sick of the sport, and if I never go on another shopping spree in Madrid then it will be too soon. And that's not even taking into account all the times he thinks an elaborate prank will cheer me up nicely…_

…_love, Cass"_

_ "November 18th,_

_ Cass,_

_ This note will probably be a short one. I just wanted to let you know we won our Quidditch match, and I caught the snitch even though Snape cursed my broom to try and buck me. I'll give you the details later; Hermione is insisting we go to the library right now, because we finally have a clue about what the dog is guarding. We were having tea with Hagrid after the match, and he let slip that someone named Nicholas Flamel has something to do with it, so we're looking him up._

_ Love,_

_ Harry"_

_ "December 10th, 12:30 am_

_ This is it, Harry Potter. The very last thing I can take._

_ Did I complain when your letters started coming less often? No. Did I call you on it when they started to get shorter and shorter? Never. But this is the final straw!_

_ You have to come home for Christmas. Uncle Moony told me you were thinking of staying at Hogwarts, and I know it's because Ron's there and you want to find out about Flamel. Well, that's just too bad for you._

_ Padfoot and Moony raised you for ten years, ever since you can remember. They fed you (okay, they _bought_ you food) and clothed you and gave you a place to sleep and an education and let raising us take over their whole lives. You __owe_ _them a few measly weeks of your time at CHRISTMAS!_

_ So, you just tell Ron that he'll have to look for Flamel himself, because you, Harry James Potter, are coming home for Christmas._

_ Cass"_

_ "December 10th, 4:55 am_

_ It's too damn early for this, Cassie._

_ Besides, I just told Moony that I was thinking of staying here, not that I had made a decision or anything._

_ I really think Snape is out to steal whatever that dog is guarding, and the sooner we figure out what that is, the better the chance is that we can stop him. I need the time in the castle library to research over the holidays._

_ It's one Christmas, Cassie, it isn't life or death._

_ Love,_

_ Harry"_

_ "December 10th, 10:30 am_

_ This is so life or death._

_ You miss Christmas and I'll kill you myself."_

_ "December 10th, 9:00pm_

_ Cass,_

_ Fine, be that way._

_ Harry"_

_ "December 11th,_

_ Dear Jerk,_

_ I know who Nicholas Flamel is, and you're an idiot for not realising it sooner. Come home and I'll tell you all about him. Bring Ron and Hermione, if you like._

_ Cass."_

_ "December 12th,_

_ Cassie,_

_ I can't come home now! Ron signed up to stay because I did and his parents are going away. I can't leave him alone for the holidays; he's my best friend at school._

_ You've got Uncle Moony, and Padfoot and the puppy they got you in September. Can't you do with out me?_

_ Love, _

_ Harry"_

_ "January 7th,_

_ Harry,_

_ I love you and miss you like crazy! But you are so jealous of my Christmas, and you so wish you could have been here, rather than rotting in some library! Padfoot was so afraid that the holiday would suck with out you that he went overboard as only Paddy can._

_ He took me on a Christmas tour.7 days of Christmas festivities in 7 countries, culminating in a massive blow out celebration in London. It was so, so amazing! I got to meet the Weird Sisters because Paddy hired them to record a song about me. Did you hear that, Harry James? The Weird Sisters wrote and recorded a song about me!_

_ Plus, Uncle Moony was so worried about me, that he let Paddy do all the shopping. I got two new racing brooms, and a pony._

_ Do you hear me? Padfoot actually bought me a pony. I am now well and truly indulged. _

_ How was your holiday?_

_ Love and kisses,_

_ Cass"_

_ "January 8th,_

_ Cassie,_

_ I'm so, so, so very glad you're talking to me again! I love you, and I missed you at Christmas. I was stupid to think that I could find anything in that library when Hermione couldn't. I guess mostly I got my back up when you started issuing orders about coming home, which was dumb._

_ Anyway, I'm an idiot and sorry for it. _

_ My Christmas was alright. Someone sent me one strange present, though (and I'm not talking about the life-size talking Harry Potter doll you found at that shop in Brussels). I've got dad's old invisibility cloak now, can you believe it?_

_ And you'll never guess what I found when I took it out for a spin late one night…_

…_love, Harry"_

"_February 11th,_

_Harry,_

_I can't believe you haven't asked me yet who Flamel is! I told you months and months ago that I knew, and you haven't asked me even once. _

_Since I'm feeling generous, I'll give you a clue. Dumbledore certainly knows who he is._

_Now, let's talk about something important. What are you going to do to get back at Fred and George for that stunt with the squirrel and the peanut butter? Personally, I think…_

…_love, Cass"_

"_February 27th,_

_Cass,_

_The prank went off beautifully! And it's all thanks to your brilliant suggestion about the purple paint and the Giant Squid…_

…_and then they realised what was going on, and started making threats against Ron and me, but they were laughing as they did it. Everyone was laughing, actually. Even Hermione thought it was funny, though she won't admit it. I saw her smiling as Fred spun frantically around, trying to figure out what happened to George and where all that purple rain was coming from! _

_I can't wait for you to get here, Cassie. Just think of the brilliant things we'll do, once you're here!_

_Love, _

_ Harry"_

_ "March 10th, _

_ Harry,_

_ I was thinking about what you'd said about Snape and Quirrell, and I think you should try following them a bit, to see if you can figure out what they're up to…_

_ …love,_

_ Cass"_

_ "March 12th,_

_Cass,_

_ Hermione thinks I'm crazy for letting you "encourage my reckless impulses". That's exactly what she said, no joke!_

_ I told her that living with Paddy was enough to encourage anyone's reckless impulses, and then we got into to a bit of a fight about whether or not she has any reckless impulses, and that went on until Ron distracted her by asking to copy her potions homework. Talk about your reckless impulses, huh?_

_ But Ron wasn't just being an idiot for no reason. We had this big prank half set up, and it was my turn to sneak into the twins' dorm, which I couldn't do while fighting with Hermione. So, Ron came through and I got to sneak into the dorm's washroom with a pile of waterproof fireworks. And, long story short, I've sent you a souvenir._

_ Please find enclosed one slightly singed Hogwarts toilet seat!_

_ And please, please don't ask what I had to do to get hold of the seat after the prank was done._

_ Love,_

_ Harry"_

_ "March 29th,_

_ Harry,_

_ Well, I think we're probably moving soon. Padfoot, who's been seeing Francesca Delacour again while we're in town, has been restless lately. I think that they've got into some sort of fight, probably about how much time Sirius spends with me and Remus instead of her. It's what they always fight about just before we leave Paris, isn't it?_

_ It's weird that I even care about moving, isn't it? I mean, seven months ago, I would have been more surprised that we'd stayed in Paris for seven months than I would have been that we were leaving finally. _

_ Moving is different now, though. Maybe it's because we've been here so long. Maybe it's because this time, I'm moving without you. And now, I have to learn how to live without you in a new place, when I'm only just getting the hang of it in Paris. Am I being too mushy to stand? I am, I can tell._

_ Oh well, it may even be that I'm not looking forward to moving because I'm not sure Uncle Moony will be coming with us. He's been hired as a tutor for a couple of Francesca's cousins' children. They pay well, and it's been a while since Uncle Moony had a job, especially in the wizarding world. He probably won't want to give it up, just because Padfoot is getting itchy here._

_ Padfoot seems itchy with the world, not just Francesca, so we're probably headed back to the island, where it will be just me and him, all alone. _

_ But that's just me being droopy. Don't mind me, I'll be fine. After all, it's only three more months until I see you again!_

_Love,_

_Cass"_

"_April 9th,_

_Cass,_

_I have another present for you! It's a delicious cake baked by our most estimable friend, Hagrid._

_Of course, you know perfectly well that you can't _eat_ it. So I hereby challenge you, my dear, to finding another use for it! Ten points for every legitimate suggestion that I happen to find amusing. 100 points are redeemable for another present._

_And keep it snappy, because I know you've got nothing better to do on that island, and I already have your next present picked out!_

_Love,_

_Harry"_

"_April 24th,_

_Cass,_

_Well, it looks like I know how I'm going to die. I will burnt to a crisp by the DRAGON that Hagrid just hatched, and then Uncle Moony will kill me for getting expelled from Hogwarts for not reporting the damn thing. _

_But I can't turn Hagrid in, not even to get rid of the little beast. He loves the thing so much, it's kind of sick. Named him Norbert, if you can believe it._

_ I have a bad feeling about this one, but I guess there's not much I can do but see where things go…_

_ …love,_

_ Harry"_

_ "April 30th,_

_ Harry,_

_ You always get yourself in the weirdest situations. Maybe you and Ron and Hermione can quietly dispose of the dragon in the middle of the night. Or maybe just set it loose in the forest…_

_ …love,_

_ Cass"_

_ "May 10th,_

_ Cass,_

_ Well, the Norbert problem is finally solved. Ron's brother Charlie took the creature away last night and I'm relieved. But the whole thing didn't exactly go off without a hitch…_

_ …at least Malfoy is stuck with a detention as well, the look on his face almost makes up for having got in trouble, though I doubt Hermione would agree!_

_ Love,_

_ Harry"_

_May 12th,_

_ Harry,_

_ Detention is worth it! I don't know what I wouldn't give to be having an adventure with a dragon right about now! Instead, I am preparing to take exams that Uncle Moony is insisting I take._

_ Can you believe it? Exams and I'm not even at Hogwarts yet. Uncle Moony says that if I don't write the exam teaching me this whole year was a waste of both our time, but I think he's just gone mad with power. Or maybe he's bored since he lost his job tutoring the Delacour kids. Did I tell you that Francesca told her cousin that Moony is a werewolf? And all because Padfoot told her that her new dress was ugly._

_ He feels pretty guilty, even if it wasn't really his fault, so even Padfoot is insisting I write the exams…_

_ …love,_

_ Cass"_

_ "June 10th,_

_Cass,_

_Okay, this will have to be short. Ron and Hermione are waiting for me, but I had to tell you something in case things go wrong. We've finally worked out everything about Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone and Snape stealing it and everything. We're pretty sure he's going for it tonight, since Dumbledore is away. _

_We're going to do something probably stupid to try to stop him. If things go bad, I love you, and tell Dumbledore what happened, and that it was Snape. And apologise to Uncle Moony for me dying before finishing school, and to Padfoot for not having time to put the finishing touches on the prank he suggested to me. _

_I've got to go now._

_Love,_

_Harry"_

"_June 11th,_

_Harry,_

_Harry Potter, I'm going to kill you. Though perhaps not as painfully as I would have if Dumbledore hadn't flooed to tell Padfoot what went on about ten minutes after I got your owl…_

…_love,_

_Cass"_

"_June 28th,_

_I'm on my way home tomorrow morning. It's been a strange year, without you, but I suppose you know that already. I can't wait to see you tomorrow…_

…_love,_

_Harry"_


	7. Chapter 6: What Came of a Reunion

_**Chapter Six: What Came of Reunion**_

_**ooOoo**_

Harry enjoyed the train ride from Hogwarts with Hermione and Ron, but he was excited when he pulled into Platform 9 ¾. It had been a long ten months since he had seen Padfoot, Uncle Moony and Cass, and he was ready to be home for a while. Not only did he miss his family, but Harry missed the beach and stargazing just for fun and sleeping outside when he felt the need. He missed the madness of Padfoot's pranks and the way Uncle Moony taught him about whatever popped into his head. He missed Cass, and how it was sometimes like having a twin, or a talkative shadow, when they were completely in sync with each other. He missed having someone around who had known him all his life, and who laughed at the same time as him when something reminded him of a joke from the past.

And Harry really, really missed her devious mind when it came to pranking.

His war with the Weasley twins, good natured and fun as it was, had been pretty tame and unimaginative, with the few exceptions of times when Cass or Padfoot had written him suggestions. Next year, Harry planned to just point Cass in the right direction and take his orders from her. She enjoyed pranks far more than Harry and had Padfoot's same natural flair, just as though she was his true daughter, rather than an adopted one.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were just stepping off the train and onto the platform, when, out of nowhere a small, blue haired blur flew into Harry's stomach, knocking the boy backwards into his friends. Ron was startled, especially when he saw that Harry was laughing and embracing his attacker. "Ron, Hermione, I want you to meet Cass," Harry said with a wide grin, "Cass, these are my new friends, Ron and Hermione."

And even as he spoke, and Cass Black shook hands with Hermione, Harry's black hair turned suddenly to a shocking shade of pink. A moment later, Harry had casually flicked his wand, and Ron had looked expectantly at Cass, expecting her blue hair to have changed colour. It hadn't, and a moment later, Ron spotted a man with violently purple hair charging over from behind Cass. The instant before he joined them, he turned the girl's hair lime green, and suddenly Harry, Cass and the man all had their wands drawn, pointing inward.

Just as Hermione was wondering whether or not they were about to hex each other, all three spun and pointed their wands at another man, who sighed wearily as his hair became a sudden hodgepodge of teal, orange and cherry red patches.

"Hello, Harry," said the man who looked like he was wearing a bad clown wig, "Have you got a hug for your old Uncle Moony?"

And in the next instant, not only Harry, but Cass and the other man as well had piled on top of the man called Moony.

Ron looked at Hermione. Hermione looked at Ron.

Finally, the girl spoke. "Are all wizard families like this, or is it just another way that Harry is…special?"

"Well, I can't imagine my mother and father turning our hair blue for fun, if that's what you mean," said Ron as the four picked themselves up, laughing together. "And the last time my brothers and I tackled Percy, mum sent us to our rooms without supper."

"You mean to say you've never been greeted by a nice dog pile?" asked the man whom Hermione had concluded must be Harry's godfather.

"Er…no," Ron said uncertainly, because the man sounded far too astounded for what the situation seemed to warrant.

"Than you haven't lived!" he cried, bounding towards the redhead, with Cass and Harry not far behind.

While Ron was being squished, Moony turned to Hermione. "I apologize for Sirius. He often behaves as though he thinks he's an overgrown puppy…and even when he doesn't, well, he's still Sirius."

"And here I thought you were saying I was never serious!"

"That joke, my dear boy," began Moony drily, "Is old enough to be my great grandfather."

"Then show some respect for your elders," Sirius replied jocularly, to much laughter.

"Hello, my dear," Sirius said the next moment, turning to the slightly apprehensive Hermione, "You must be the little beauty my godson has written so much about! I am Sirius Black and that stuffy old man who thinks he's funny is Remus Lupin. He's mostly harmless and entirely housebroken, I promise."

"I wish I could say the same thing about you," replied three voices at once, before Moony-or, rather, Mr. Lupin- Harry and Cass broke down laughing again.

"What's funny?" asked Ron, looking at the three who had spoken in unison.

"We've known each other for a very long time," explained Sirius, "We tend to trade the same insults back and forth without getting too creative about it."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Mr. Black," Hermione said politely, hoping to steer the conversation back to safer ground, and wondering what on earth was wrong with Harry that he was acting so differently from usual.

Sirius shuddered, "Please call me Sirius, or Padfoot or even Banana-breath, but don't call me Mr. Black," he instructed as Mr. Lupin rolled his eyes.

"Erm… okay," Hermione said, watching as Harry and the green haired girl as they danced about in what looked to be some sort of ritual. It involved a lot of shaking hands and bobbing and weaving around each other, while chattering excitedly the whole time. Hermione was surprised, since she had never seen Harry being that silly, that much like a kid. Usually with Harry it was all serious mystery-solving and people-rescuing, he even took his prank war with the twins very seriously.

A moment later, Ron had slid up next to Hermione. Sirius had turned his attention to Harry's other best friend when Hermione had started musing about Harry's strange new attitude. "Where's Harry gone?" Ron asked in a bit of a whisper. Hermione suddenly felt better, knowing that she wasn't the only one who had seen the change in Harry in the last two minutes.

"Maybe he just missed his family…" Hermione suggested.

"I missed my family, Hermione, and I don't think I'll be going crazy the moment I see my dad," Ron told her sceptically as he watched the four others romp around some more.

"Well…I guess this _is_ just another way Harry is special," Hermione sighed. She'd need to start a list soon, to keep track on all the ways her best friend was 'unique'.

"Ron!" called a voice suddenly, as Percy Weasley hurried towards the group. "Ronald, mother is going spare, wondering where you are. She's just headed out to the muggle side of the station, thinking you might have wandered out there with your muggle-born friend."

"Her name is Hermione, Perce, and you know it," Ron said, but it was distracted as he quickly gathered up his things. Hermione started to heave on her trunk as well, but a moment later, Sirius had taken it from her.

"Let me get that for you," Sirius offered, despite the fact that he'd already held the trunk. "Harry's trunk is already shrunk down in his pocket, so I've got nothing else to carry, which is sad because I am a world class pack horse. In fact, that's what I plan to have written on my tombstone."

Percy blushed, and turned back to the group he had nearly left behind. "How rude of me," he said, shrinking Ron's trunk with a tap of his wand and then turning back to Sirius. "Really, I know that you probably don't need to go through to the muggle side, Mr. er…Potter?"

"Sirius Black, actually," Sirius corrected with a brief laugh, as Percy took the trunk from him.

"I'm Percy Weasley," the red head said, as Ron looked anxiously towards the portal. "And I'll take Ronald and Hermione on through. My mother is over there, looking for us, and I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Granger will be waiting for their daughter as well."

"Alright, then, mate," Sirius said, "Maybe I'll see you around when the kid's get together this summer."

"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Black," Percy said as he led the two first years away from where they had just said goodbye to Harry.

"He called you 'Mr. Black'," Cass pointed out.

Sirius nodded.

"You _let_ him call you Mr. Black," Cass said in awe.

"Well, I'm pretty sure he's about twenty years older than me," Sirius said "Even if he's only fifteen."

And on that note, amidst much laughter, the four Black-Potter-Lupins Apparated away from the train station, headed back to the closest thing they had to a family home, all a little intoxicated by the fact that they were all together again as a family.

ooOoo

As Hermione left the station with her parents a few minutes after she had introduced them to Ron and his family, she was happy. Meeting Sirius Black and Remus Lupin had explained a lot about Harry and the way he sometimes seemed to be two separate people at once. It was also good to meet Cass Black. Hermione had been terrified of coming face-to-face with the girl that Harry was constantly writing to; half thinking that Cass was set to take Hermione's place with Ron and Harry next year. But, having seen the friendly girl, Hermione was a little more confident that there would be room for everyone next year.

Maybe Cass was even more like her Uncle 'Moony' than she seemed at first; maybe she would be a calming influence on Ron and Harry next year.

Hermione would probably find out over the course of the summer, since there were plans in place for the three of them to get together. In the back seat of her parent's car, Hermione smiled to herself, relishing the thought of summer plans with real friends, and maybe next year, even having another girl around to talk to.

ooOoo

"Ronald Weasley," scolded the boy's mother fiercely as the Granger family left. "I cannot believe you disappeared like that, especially after all you did to make us worry at school this year! Honestly, I didn't have Professor McGonagall writing me about your brothers fighting trolls and getting mixed up with giant chess boards and philosopher's stones!"

"Sorry, mum," Ron said, hanging his head. Mrs. Weasley drew in a breathe, but before she could go on, the small girl who had been clinging to her until that moment darted around her mother to throw herself at Ron. The boy just barely managed to get his arms up in time to catch his sister.

"Ronnie! I was scared when we couldn't find you!" she scolded solemnly as she looked into her youngest brother's eyes. He was tall for his age, and she short for hers, or else he wouldn't have been able to hold her off the ground like he was.

"I'm sorry, Ann. I was just with my friends, I didn't mean to scare you," the boy said earnestly, not seeing the way his mother's angry frown faded.

"Mama thought you were lost," Anna Weasley said quietly, looking scared as she uttered the last word.

That same word had a profound effect on the four Weasley sons as well, each of them taking an unconscious step towards their mother. Ron looked nearly in tears himself, as he shifted Anna around so that he could look at his mother.

"Mum, I'm so sorry," he said, "I promise you won't ever again have to worry about me being…lost. "

Mrs. Weasley smiled tightly as she led her five youngest children home.

Within two minutes of arriving back on the island together with her whole family, Cass began to feel as though the world was back in its proper order. The agony of the last ten months spent apart seemed to fade away now that Harry was home, and life was back to normal.

It was like living in the past again, if Cass ignored the subtle air of trying to fit too many things into too little time. They were bouncing from place to place and activity to activity, spending a day in Paris, two on the Island before heading to London. They saw a couple of quidditch matches and went to a concert in Cairo, where they then spent a couple of days exploring the pyramids. The best part, though, was that they were all four together.

Harry was home from Hogwarts, and Uncle Moony had part of the summer off from tutoring. Cass couldn't have said who was more thrilled, but she thought that maybe she and Padfoot tied for first place. Life was good again; right up until the moment Harry packed his bags and went to spend two weeks with Ron Weasley at his home.

He hugged Cass goodbye, then dashed off to spend his summer with his school friends.

She tried not to take it personally, but she still ended up in the centre of the island fighting back tears all alone in the clearing about ten minutes after he was gone.

Stubbornly scrubbing her cheeks dry, Cass gave herself a stern talking to that quickly morphed into bitter mumblings about stupid friends and stupid boys abandoning people. She worked up enough anger to stop the tears pretty quickly, and was even in enough of a rage to start throwing rocks at poor, unsuspecting trees when all of a sudden, there appeared between her and her most recent target, a small figure.

"Watch _out_!" screamed Cass as the projectile flew towards the figure, but it was too late. The rock collided with its shoulder, knocking the figure to the ground. Cass rushed to its side, apologising as she went. "Oh my gosh! I am so sorry! Are you alright?"

"Oh, I is being fine, miss," the creature said. When he snapped his fingers and the small wound disappeared, Cass had a chance to register that the creature was a house-elf.

"Who are you?" she asked, sitting back on her knees, facing the little figure as he got to his feet.

"I is being Dobby, miss," he said.

"You aren't a friend of Kreacher's, are you?" Cass asked, naming the horribly mean house-elf who lived in Padfoot's family home in London. The miserable elf detested Padfoot especially, but even more alarmingly, had a bit of a soft spot for Cass, based, she supposed on the fact that Grandmother Black had liked Cass well enough.

"Oh, no, Miss," Dobby said quickly, "I isn't having any friends."

"Well, that's…terrible," Cass said, not really sure if that was the appropriate reply, but feeling a certain empathy for the sad figure, "I'm actually kind of short on friends myself. There's really only Harry, and he's got these other friends now."

"Harry Potter is what I came to see you about!" Dobby squeaked excitedly.

Cass winced at the pitch of his voice, but none the less leaned sat down to be more on the elf's eye level. "What do you mean?"

"There is a plot, Miss, and you must stop Harry Potter from going back to Hogwarts!"

ooOooooOooooOooooOoo

Later, Cass would wonder why she had never made more of an effort to act on Dobby's warning. As it was, she was more concerned with trying to prepare herself to be at school, and didn't even mention the elf's visit to anyone else.

Cass was finally, after all the years of hearing stories from the last two true Marauders, going to be at Hogwarts; she didn't really have time for cryptic warnings from deranged creatures. Dobby hadn't even really been there to warn Cass, so much as to give Harry a second-hand warning. Cass was no one's messenger, and she had more important things to talk to Harry about when she finally saw him a week later in Diagon Alley.

And even then, her time with him was somewhat limited by the fact that Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were hanging around. Harry didn't even go with Cass, Padfoot and Uncle Moony to buy her new wand. Apparently Mr. Ollivander made Harry's skin crawl. Cass wasn't sure she bought that, but, whatever the truth of Harry's feelings about the wandmaker, he went for ice cream with his friends rather than watching her buy her own wand.

Really, after that, Cass had trouble being excited about the shopping trip, even once Harry and his friends met them at the bookstore. By the time that that nut, Gilderoy Lockheart, had hauled Harry up on stage and made a fool of them both while announcing his appointment as Defence Against the Dark Arts, Cass had lost all sympathy for the boy who had been raised along side her. She giggled as he stumbled, blinded by the flashing camera, down from the stage, his arms loaded down by the books he'd been given.

Harry blushed, coming to stand in front of her new cauldron. He filled it to the shinning brim with the books and tugged on a lock of her electric blue hair. "What are you laughing at, Cassie?"

"I should have known you'd be here, Potter, when I saw the cameras. You can't resist a chance to get on the front page, can you?" Cass watched silently as Harry stiffened and turned to put himself between her and the boy who owned the drawling voice. Harry's tactic didn't seem to succeed, because the blonde boy's smirk hardened as he went on. "My, my, who is that colourful…creature behind you? You find yourself a freaky little girlfriend over the summer?"

"You surprise me, Malfoy," Harry said coolly, impressing Cass with his ability to rise above the blonde's comments. "I expect you to take whatever cheap shots you want at me, but I thought you'd have more respect for family. Cass, as you should well know, is the only daughter of the head of the House of Black. Your mother was a Black, I believe."

"She was," admitted the Malfoy boy reluctantly.

"Well, then, show some respect to your young cousin, before I am forced to teach you some hard lessons," Harry's voice was menacing, something that amused Cass to no end, but she kept herself from laughing by trying to look sufficiently impressive as the last daughter of the House of Black. It wasn't a role she often found herself portraying, especially not since Padfoot's mum had died.

The old woman had liked Cass to come and talk to her sometimes, despite the fact that she hated her son and would rather not have allowed him back in her home. Still, from the time Walburga was aware of Cass's existence, the Black matriarch had a certain fondness for her granddaughter. Cass had never quite been sure of how she felt about Padfoot's mother; the woman had always been kind to her, but she had treated Harry, Uncle Moony and her own son with a sort of cool contempt. It had been years since the lady had died, grudgingly leaving her entire fortune to her only remaining offspring, and Cass still didn't know how she felt about the fact that her grandmother had thought that she was the perfect little pureblood child.

Still, the woman had been able to teach her a thing or two about the old families, particularly those, like the Malfoys, who had married into the House of Black. Cass knew enough to understand why Harry had taken this particular tact with the blonde boy.

"Well, put, Mr. Potter," said the amused voice of the white-blonde haired adult who had just stepped up behind the boy who was clearly his son. "And on behalf of my wife, may I say that I am most pleased to meet you, Miss Black… or, at least, what I can see of you, hidden as you are behind Mr. Potter."

Harry nodded stiffly to his classmate's father, not allowing Cass to step out from behind his skinny body. She was vaguely annoyed, but also pleased that Harry was paying attention to her again, at least indirectly.

Mr. Malfoy dipped his hand into the heap of books piled in Cass's new cauldron. "Aw, I see you are starting at Hogwarts this year, Miss Black. Congratulations."

"Why, Lucius, on behalf of my daughter, I thank you for the well wishes," Padfoot said jovially, coming up behind his children, bringing with him Ron's parents, as well as Hermione's. Several redheaded children drifted over, and Ron and Hermione themselves went to stand shoulder to shoulder with Harry. Annoyance surged in Cass as her view of the Malfoys was entirely blocked off by the older kids.

"Ah, Sirius… how lovely to see the Head of House Black, and out in public, no less," Malfoy said, smiling mockingly, "And in such company! A pack of Weasleys and a pair of muggles, I believe. What... interesting friends for a most ancient and noble house to cultivate."

There was a sudden shuffling noise as Arthur Weasley made a move towards the blonde man. Padfoot intervened quite quickly, placing a hand on the redheaded man's shoulder. "Arthur, don't take notice of the yapping of an inbred pawn with such terribly bloody hands."

Mr. Malfoy seemed to feel that insult keenly, and the tension of the moment soared. Cass was just beginning to wonder if she should just push her father out the door before the other man pulled a wand on him, when a friendly giant of a man stepped in. "Hey, now, here are some faces I haven't seen for quite a while. Sirius, how you been?"

"Hagrid! I haven't seen you since Moony's birthday," Sirius said happily, turning easily away from the brewing fight. "Hey, do you know Arthur and Molly Weasley? And have you met the Grangers?"

After that, the large party left the bookstore, and the two Malfoys behind. Sirius quickly organized a trip to the Leaky Cauldron for the adults. The children were turned loose, and Harry, Ron and Hermione were quickly huddled with their heads together, discussing who-knew-what. Luckily, before she could feel too excluded, that Weasley twins fell in step with her.

"You know, Harry's hair was almost exactly that shade of blue when we met him," said the twin on her right.

"Huh," Cass said, picking up one of the braids that hung in front of her shoulder, "I was more aiming for green when I turned it this colour."

"Don't mind George," said the twin on her left, "He's mostly colour-blind."

"You're one to talk, Fred," retorted the twin on the right, "You have practically no sense of smell whatsoever!"

"Is that natural?" interrupted Cass before Fred could say anything further, "Or does it come of one of your mad pranks gone wrong?"

"Pranks?" asked George, with a very theatrical gleam of interest in his eye.

"Do you claim to know anything about the fine art of pranking?" chimed in Fred, just as eager looking as his twin.

"I may…" but Cass was quickly cut off by a shout from Harry, who had finally looked away from his friends long enough to see the twins on either side of Cass.

"Oi! You two had better not be dragging Cass into our prank war!" cried Harry indignantly from across the Alley.

"Perish the thought, Potter!" exclaimed Fred.

"We'd never dream of using one's younger sibling against them!" added George, looking at the youngest Weasley boy, standing beside Harry.

"But seriously, kid," Fred said to Cass directly, "Anytime you think your big brother deserves a little payback, just let us know."

"Quit corrupting her, already, you two," Harry laughingly accused. A few more insults were exchanged, before the older boys cheerfully departed. Cass, left alone on her side of the Alley, quickly crossed to stand with Harry and his friends.

"What was that about?" she asked.

"What? The corrupting thing?" asked Harry, "I just didn't want those two to know what an evil genius you are. You're our secret weapon!"

And right at that moment, Cass was happier than she had been since Harry had left for school nearly a year before.

That feeling lasted about seven seconds, before Ron called Harry over to see something in the window of a shop. He rushed off towards his friends once again, and Cass was, for the second time in as many minutes, left standing all alone on a crowded street. She sighed, wondering if this was what her life at school was doomed to be like, disjointed moments when Harry noticed her, linked together by a lot of uncertain wondering around on her own.

Cass was sad for a while, as she wandered between shops, spotting Percy Weasley being tugged about by Anna, the twins eyeing a shady side alley longingly, and Harry and his best friends laughing outside the book store. Everyone seemed to be surrounded by people, except for her; and so, she was sad.

But by the time she said goodbye to Harry, who was off to spend a couple more days with Hermione and Ron, Cass was angry. And whenever she was truly mad, her favourite place to go was on the far edge of the island, to an angry jut of rock where she could fling things out into the water, or just lie on the ground, looking up a the sky, with the sound of waves crashing in her ears. That was where Cass went, the moment she arrived home with Padfoot. She was distantly glad that Uncle Moony had been caught up with his latest tutoring gig. She may have had more trouble escaping from the werewolf's company without him realising she was upset.

Padfoot was many things, but particularly sensitive to hurt feelings, he was not.

Cass didn't even wait long enough to drop the shopping bags she was carrying; she just bolted out into the early evening, looking for her favourite lonely place.

She spent nearly an hour being hurt, and angry about the way Harry had practically ignored her all day before she got fed up with herself and seized upon the bags of school books she had spilled on the ground earlier. She was seeking a distraction, any kind of distraction, but the first few attempts were a bust. She'd already gone through everything in the _Standard Book of Spells, Grade One_ with Uncle Moony and the transfiguration book proved not to be new territory for her either.

And then she stumbled upon a small, shabby book that stood out among all her crisp new school texts. Further inspection revealed it to be an old, empty journal. Cass couldn't imagine how it had wound up in her shopping bag, but she pulled out a brand new bottle of ink and a bright pink quill. She doubted T.M. Riddle would mind terribly if she wrote in his discarded diary.


	8. Chapter 7: What Came of Hidden Secrets

_**Chapter Seven: What Came of Hidden Secrets**_

The first day of Cass Black's school career began a bit shakily. Padfoot, once again feeling unfortunately domestic, set before Cass and Harry was some conglomeration of toast, bacon and eggs, with perhaps a base of porridge heaped below it. More alarming than even the terrifying scent it emitted, the whole concoction was a startling shade of blue.

"Padfoot," Cass said tentatively, when her father was sitting down across from her, "My breakfast is blue."

"Yes," he said shortly, grinning widely. He looked, Cass reflected objectively, a bit deranged.

"Food isn't ordinarily blue," Harry pointed out.

"You're forgetting blueberries," the older man suggested.

"No, I'm not," Harry insisted, "They're more a sort of purple. No food is blue, especially neon-electric blue."

"Look," Padfoot said, suddenly sounding rather harassed, "I charmed it blue on purpose."

"You know, I'm not sure if that's a relief or not," Cass said thoughtfully, getting up the nerve to poke at the mass on her plate. The results were not encouraging.

"Trust me, it looks more appetizing this way," Sirius assured them, "Food might not _normally_ be blue, but it plain shouldn't be grey-green."

"Don't worry, Cass," Harry whispered to her, grinningly, "They sell pumpkin pasties on the train!"

Cass giggled as a bright blue strip of bacon flew across the table and landed in Harry's hair. For a moment, it looked like an all out food fight might ensue, but the arrival of an old, indignant looking owl averted that bit of childishness. Padfoot took the note and attempted to feed Uncle Moony's pet a bit of blue toast. The owl refused to touch the morsel, fluttering to settle on Cass's chair. She was rather flattered that the bird felt she was the next best person to protect him while his true master was away working as a tutor in Belgium.

"Huh," Padfoot said, after reading the brief sentence scrawled across the parchment, "How does he always know when I'm getting sidetracked?"

Glancing at the letter, which had the words 'Stop procrastinating and get those kids to the train' just above the squiggle of Uncle Moony's signature, Harry suggested, "Perhaps he just assumes that you're always getting sidetracked and operates accordingly."

About to reply, Padfoot's eye was instead caught by the bag of fireworks and other assorted goodies that he had piled by the door, "Never mind that, just make sure that bag gets into some one's trunk, now before Moony can stop us!"

Harry laughingly helped Padfoot to stuff the contraband into his trunk, and Cass stealthily cleared the table, hoping that Padfoot would just forget about trying to feed them. Ten busy minutes later, the two students had all of their school things gathered and the three were on the verge of Apparating away, when something suddenly occurred to Cass. "My diary!" she shouted, dashing away, "I've forgotten my diary!"

By the time Cass returned, the ratty book tucked under her arm, Padfoot had wandered off. As the girl came back to stand by Harry, he looked at her oddly. "Since when do you keep a diary?" he asked.

"Since I needed someone to tell all my fabulous secrets to," Cass said, forcing a grin.

Harry frowned, but then Padfoot was back, baring the cage for Harry's owl, Hedwig. "Alright, you two, we need to get out of here, or we're going to miss that train!"

Cass didn't really believe that they were in danger of missing the train, not even two minutes later, when they were dashing through the muggle train station, barrelling towards the barrier hiding platform 9 ¾, where they nearly ran into the Weasley twins.

"Harry!" called Ron eagerly from the middle of the mob of red-heads. Suddenly feeling left out, Cass shrank against Padfoot as Harry dashed towards his gangly best friend.

"Homesick, already, Cassie?" Padfoot teased, taking his daughter's hand as the harassed looking Molly Weasley herded pairs of people through the barrier, muttering about time.

"No way, Padfoot! I can't wait to be gone," she said, shaking hair that she had just recently dyed black, pushing it away from her face. "I'm going to have that school under my thumb by this time next week!"

"That's my girl!" he said with a laugh, guiding her onto the platform, leaving Harry to make his way over with Ron. Mrs. Weasley and her little girl, Anna, were through almost before Cass and Padfoot were out of the way. "We're cutting a bit close, Star. Why don't we get your trunk settled and I'll come back for Harry, yeah?"

So, Cass found herself hustled onto the train alone, before Harry and Ron had appeared. She quickly settled her things in the only empty compartment she could find. Soon, the train was moving, and a group of fourth year boys had filled up the spaces that Cass had been saving for Harry and his friends. Sighing unhappily, Cass pulled out her diary and resigned herself to a lonely few hours.

She supposed she should be used to the feeling by now, after the last month of having Harry's friends stay with them. They'd jetted around from country to country, and all the while Cass had been surrounded by people, but left to her own devices. Her special diary had helped, but it was still hard to be so alone.

ooOoo

Cass heard about the adventure Harry had with Ron's dad's car before she saw him again. She was already in her new bed in the Gryffindor tower by the time the two boys reached the common room that night, where they received a lot of cheering and a bit of scolding. Cass was planning on cornering Harry at breakfast and getting the story from him while making him feel guilty for not only leaving her alone for the train ride, but also missing her sorting. She hadn't been exactly worried about the ceremony, because Harry had told her about the Sorting Hat months before, but Cass had been a bit afraid that she would end up in one of the other houses, rather than Gryffindor. She knew that Moony and Padfoot wouldn't say anything, or love her any less, if she were a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff, but she also knew that Padfoot, at least, would be a little disappointed.

She'd been so relieved when her sorting was over, and she was headed towards a table full of cheering students, but that relief had quickly been pushed aside by the realisation that she couldn't see Harry anywhere in that group. She spotted a worried-looking Hermione Granger, and a few Weasley-red heads, but neither Harry nor his male best friend were in evidence anywhere.

Cass's heart had sunk at that moment and she had yet to find anything to raise it back up two weeks into term. She'd tried everything she could think of to distract herself from the dejection and abandonment she was feeling, but, in all honesty, Cass had given up finding much joy in anything at Hogwarts before her first class had even started.

She had gone early to that first Transfiguration class, hoping to say hello to Professor McGonagall, who had been a frequent guest of the family's for most of Cass's life. At first, she had mostly just come along when Dumbledore stopped in for tea, but her ability to transform into a cat had so entranced a young Cass that the woman was soon invited over on her own merit.

The teacher, however, wasn't in her classroom, and so Cass sat down at a desk and flipped listlessly through her textbook, trying to find a spell that Uncle Moony hadn't already taught her during their tutoring sessions the year previously. Soon enough, other students began trickling in, including the four girls who shared her dorm. The tallest one, whose name Cass couldn't recall, stopped by her desk and looked disdainfully at Cass, from the top of her dyed-black hair, to the toes of the knee-high boots she'd picked up in Paris the month before.

"My, my, aren't you keen," she said snidely. "Got your books out and everything, all ready to go."

Cass didn't say anything, but even with her limited experience with kids who weren't Harry, she could tell from the tone of the girl's voice that she wasn't making herself any friends. There was also something in the way her class mate looked her up and down dismissively, like nothing from her charmed hair colour to the bright purple accessories met with peer approval. An hour later, when Cass was the only person to complete the task that McGonagall had set, she knew that there weren't going to be people clamouring to sit with her at dinner.

She had been right. Cass had eaten dinner that night alone, coming down to eat just in time to wave as Harry and his friends left the meal. A few of the dinners after that, Cass had eaten with Harry's group, but she had been on the periphery of Ron and Hermione's bickering and Harry's frantic attempts to break them up. For the last two days, she had taken to avoiding Harry, because it was hard to be around him without yelling at him for ignoring her.

But Cass was soon regretting the fact that she'd been avoiding Harry. She had yet to make it to her charms classroom in under 20 minutes, and that third Monday of the school year, Cass had been wandering through the Hogwarts halls for more than an a half hour. She could have really used a friendly bit of guidance, and perhaps a map.

Cass was on the verge of tears, well and truly lost, when a voice intruded on her misery.

"Are you alright?"

For a moment, Cass was sure that Harry had found her, was going to save her. She looked around, spotted three figures, and sighed. "Oh… it's you."

"Should I be offended you're so disappointed, little cousin?"

"No. I'm just late and lost and I don't have time for you, Malfoy," snapped Cass.

"Calling me 'Malfoy' now, are you?" the blonde boy asked, "You're letting Potter cloud your view of me."

"No, I think I saw you pretty clearly at the bookstore," Cass retorted, wishing that she knew which direction she should be going in, so that she could stomp off, leaving Malfoy alone with his silent goons. After a second, Cass decided it didn't matter that she was lost. Anywhere in the castle was a better place than wherever the three Slytherins happened to be.

"Wait a second, would you?"

She walked off, but was surprised to find herself suddenly sprawled on the ground, her book bag hanging from the firm grasp of Goyle's large hand. Her things were dripping to the ground, and she glared up at the large, older boy.

"Here, let me help you up, Black," Malfoy said, after swatting the offending oaf. The boy picked Cass up, then bent and gathered her things. Back on her feet, Cass looked at Draco Malfoy closely, trying to understand what was going on. He noticed her scrutiny.

"Look, I didn't mean for him to do that," he said quickly, his voice low and agitated. "I just wanted you to stop a minute and listen to me. I wanted to tell you…about my behaviour in the book store- well, I'm sorry."

Cass blinked for a moment. "Why?" she asked finally.

"Why am I sorry?"

"No. I meant, why are you bothering to apologize to me?"

"Ah," he said, avoiding her eyes a moment. "My mother reminded me that your grandmother was her favourite aunt, and that Aunt Walburga adored you. I don't know if you know this, but, once upon a time, my mother was a great favourite of your grandmother's."

Cass frowned. She knew, of course, that Draco Malfoy's mother was Padfoot's cousin, and that they had spent quite a lot of time together as children. It was a bit different, though, thinking of the frail blonde girl with the dreamy eyes in the pictures at Grimmauld Place as a grown woman, married to Mr. Malfoy, and mother of Harry's school rival. "Cissy, right? That's your mum?"

Malfoy looked at Cass strangely. "Not many people call her that," he said.

"Padfoot does, when he mentions her," Cass explained. "And Grandmother always did."

"You know, in a very real way, you and my mother are the only true Blacks left, the last remains of a great family," Malfoy said.

"Padfoot, and Andromeda Tonks, and her daughter-"

"You know that, right or wrong, Sirius and Andromeda Tonks were both disowned a long time ago. And you know that your grandmother only allowed your father to inherit for your sake," the blonde boy argued gently. "I'm not trying to say anything against your father or my other aunt. I'm just trying to point out that we're family, however distantly, and… I suppose that means something to mother."

"Just to your mother?" asked Cass, suspiciously.

"Well, no. I suppose it means something that you're a Black, Miss Black," Malfoy said, "Even if you do insist on wasting time with Potter."

"Look…call me Cass, alright?" she said awkwardly, now the one avoiding eye contact.

"Alright, Cass," the boy agreed, "So long as you call me Draco. Cousins should be on first name terms, at the very least. Now, you said you were lost. Where are you supposed to be?"

"Charms, about ten minutes ago," Cass said, suddenly remembering her panic.

"Calm down, Cass," Draco said, "We'll get you there in less than two minutes, and Professor Flitwick will just have to understand that you got lost. Come on, let's go!"

And so, somehow Cass found herself being led through the halls of Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy's hand politely resting on her elbow, one of his hulking friends carrying her bag. The surreal experience only ended when Draco had deposited Cass at the open door of the charms classroom. Cass took a deep breath, waved goodbye to her new friends, and prayed that her classmates would be absorbed in the lesson.

They were not, and soon all eyes were on her. There was nothing for it but to blaze on. "Sorry, Professor. I didn't mean to be late, but I got lost."

"Oh, no harm, Miss Black," he squeaked, "Just take your seat and pull out your wand."

Cass smiled at the small teacher, putting her strange experience with the Malfoy heir behind her.

ooOoo

Unfortunately for Cass, the school gossips were not quite so eager to chalk her little detour up to experience and move on. They were undoubtedly helped along by the fact that the boy concerned had turned up at breakfast, toting a half-finished essay that had apparently not made it back into her bag the day before, after Goyle had dumped her things.

Soon, everyone was talking about the strange friendship between the two. Even the professors noticed that the Malfoy heir was behaving nicely to the daughter of the house of Black. Snape, who had until that point treated her with the sort of nasty vindictiveness that Harry received, suddenly ignored her. But by far, the biggest reaction to her conversation with Draco came from Harry.

He cornered her in the common room, on one of the few occasions that she had stayed there rather than seeking out a more private location. From the moment he spotted her, he was agitated and loud. "What are you up to, Cass Black?"

"Up to? What do you mean, Harry?" Cass wasn't even feigning innocence. Just at the moment, all she was up to was copying out one of the essays she had written for Moony the year before, so that she could hand it in to Professor Flitwick.

"Yeah, explain to me what logical reason you could have to cozying up to Malfoy, so I don't have to assume you're just nuts," Harry said, leaning down over her, resting his hands on the table filled with her school books.

"Melodramatic, much?" Cass asked, hardly able to believe how angry Harry was. "It was barely a ten minute conversation. He offered to help me find the charms classroom because I was lost and there was no one else for me to ask."

"Oh, I get it. This is you punishing me for not paying enough attention to you, isn't it?" Harry said, "Well, in case you hadn't noticed, babe, you're the one who's been doing all the avoiding!"

"I can't believe you're freaking over this," Cass said, wishing she wasn't stuck behind the table, and that she could stand up. "For cripes sakes, he's our cousin!"

"He is not! You and I both know that he's no family of ours, even if he's distantly related to Padfoot," Harry said, growling a bit, "Family is more than watered-down blood ties and arranged marriages, it's the people who are there for you, and the people you choose to be there for!"

"Maybe I choose Draco," countered Cass quietly, uncertainly.

"You can't," Harry said, "Padfoot wouldn't like it."

"Well, Padfoot's word has never exactly been law for you and me," Cass said, "I'm more concerned with how the boy himself acts than how my father _thinks_ he will act. Besides, Draco shouldn't be entirely judged on the fact that Padfoot hates his father. At the very least, there's the fact that Grandmother adored his mother, when she was a girl."

"Honestly, I don't much care who that crazy old woman favoured," Harry said, "She was a bigot and pureblood-crazed terror!"

"You just couldn't stand the fact that she didn't care about you, one way or the other! You hated that I was her favourite!" Cass retorted, shooting to her feet, knocking her chair backwards.

"You don't know anything about it," Harry said, voice low now, and nasty, "Every time you left to visit her, Padfoot and Moony and I would talk about how we pitied you, and how we were afraid that you might turn out just like her, one of these days. Now I think maybe that's already happening, if the company you choose is anything to judge by."

About to retort, Cass suddenly noticed their audience. Glancing around nervously, Cass made the effort to switch to speaking French_. "You're being terribly self absorbed, Harry! You won't even consider that there could be more to a person than what you see."_

"_And you're delusional, if you think Malfoy sought you out for your own sake!"_ Harry said hotly, clearly surprising the people around him as French words dropped easily from his mouth_. "He just wants to make you a pawn in his stupid rivalry with me!" _

"_You are such an egotistical ass!_

"_And you're just pouting because, for once, my life doesn't revolve around you and the things you want to do!"_

Cass walked away. She could have stayed and fought back against the accusation, but she was afraid that if she did, she might actually give into the temptation to hit him. That wasn't something she wanted to do in front of an audience, and so Cass walked away.

What Cass didn't know then, was that fight would mark the last time Harry would speak to Cass for a long time, until well after Christmas, which they spent apart for the second time. Harry, for his part, was quickly drawn into the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets, preoccupied with trying to prove to the school that he wasn't the heir of Slytherin. Cass became increasingly withdrawn. She spent hours alone, scribbling to her diary.

It seemed somehow, like it was suddenly June. Two boys lay petrified in the hospital, victims along side a cat and a ghost. It was strange, but for all Cass was upset by the attacks, she felt detached and far-away every time some one mentioned the Chamber.

All the same, a slow-building suspicion, a niggling worry, had been forming inside her. She managed to put it off for many weeks, but then there were two more victims. And one was Harry's best friend. When she heard the news that Hermione Granger had been petrified alongside a sixth-year Ravenclaw, it ceased to matter that Cass was mad at Harry. She simply had to be there for him.

ooOoo

Cass found him on the grounds, under a tree by the lake, a dark spot of guilty grief and anger against the sunny backdrop. Everyone seemed to be giving Harry a wide berth, even though the furious rumours about his recently revealed ability to speak parseltongue were beginning to die down, and few people believed him capable of attacking Hermione. No one seemed to know what to do with Harry, now that his best friend was a victim of the mysterious evil stalking the school. Even Ron Weasley was elsewhere when Cass tracked Harry down, apparently having been accosted by his brother Percy. "Ron's probably still getting lectured about not wandering off and how worried his mother is."

"Wow, that Percy is a barrel of fun, isn't he? You'd think he could be sensitive enough to cut his brother some slack right now," Cass said, not wanting to make a more direct reference to Hermione's current condition. Harry's face darkened, anyway, though he kept his voice light.

"Lecturing is how Percy deals with his love for his family, it's how he shows he cares about his brothers enough to not want them thrown out of school," Harry explained, "Besides, Mrs. Weasley probably is really worried about Ron and his brothers. She has this problem with anxiety when they're away, and Percy seems to remember that better than the others."

Cass sat beside Harry, and began braiding strands of grass. "You've been doing a lot of thinking about Percy Weasley lately?"

Harry sighed, ruffling his hair with one hand, "Lately, I've been thinking about anything except…Hermione."

Maybe there should have been magical, healing words for Cass to say just then, but they wouldn't come. Her suspicions were pounding inside her, beating a constant rhythm with the guilt crashing down on her. Harry was so broken, and Cass was really beginning to fear that it was her fault. She had to say something, fix her mistakes, but then Harry was talking again, pouring out all his anxieties, his anger and his fears.

"And it's just that I _know_ if I was the one in the hospital, Hermione would figure everything out and save me…"

Cass couldn't do it then, couldn't confess to Harry that she might be the one responsible for his best friend's hospitalization. At the same time, she couldn't find the words to tell him a reassuring lie. Instead, she just moved into his side, letting him wrap his arms around her, letting him crush her close to his body.

Time unfolded slowly around them, though it was hard to tell even that much, with her face pressed into his shoulder. For a measure, Cass counted Harry's heart beats crashing in her ear. Another moment she catalogued by the strokes of his hand through her hair. She focused on remembering every moment, saving it against the time when she actually told him about her mysterious blackouts and guilty feelings.

The tide was rising in her again, the need to blurt out her secrets. There was a moment when she thought that she'd be able to tell Harry, when Cass pulled back and saw how sad his eyes were, she could have opened her mouth and spilled her putrid secret, just to see that sadness go, even if it was replaced by anger at her.

But then Ron was there, throwing his skinny body on the ground. "God, Percy was on a right tear today. I never would have gotten out of there if Fred hadn't set off a bag of fireworks right behind Percy."

Cass sprung up, startled by the sudden arrival of Ron, but also guiltily relieved that her moment of reckoning had been put off. Muttering a brief excuse, she scuttled away.

ooOoo

"What's with her, mate?" Ron asked.

Harry followed his gaze to the girl who was fleeing back towards the castle, over the green lawns of Hogwarts. "What do you mean?"

"She doesn't look very well, does she? She's all skinny and skittish and her hair is half black and half red…she looked upset," Ron pointed out, and Harry frowned in confusion. "Well, what did she come out here for?"

"To talk to me, I guess," Harry said, "But I was the one who did most of the talking."

"Huh," Ron said, "That probably wasn't what she meant to happen. Usually when my little sister is upset, she's the one who wants to do the talking, but she always waits until I ask what's wrong first. It's like she needs permission to tell me her problems or something."

Harry dismissed Ron's advice right then. "Cass isn't like that. She doesn't really need me for anything, and she certainly doesn't need my permission to talk. I mean, she's Cass Black. She makes her own rules."

"If you say so," Ron agreed amiably enough. "Anyway, it was murder trying to get down here, between Percy and all the teachers mucking about in the hallways. I reckon you and I should probably use your cloak on the way back."

ooOoo

In the days after her aborted attempt at talking to Harry, Cass really began to loose track of herself. One minute she would be sitting on her bed, resisting the temptation to write to Tom, and then suddenly she would come to herself in a random corridor of the castle, one she knew she shouldn't have been able to get to in an absent-minded haze without the patrolling teachers noticing. As time wore on, there were fewer and fewer times when Cass had any clarity of mind, was at all aware of her surroundings and her actions.

One such moment of awareness occurred at breakfast time, when Cass suddenly realised that she was in the Great Hall, in the midst of the chattering student population. The noise was nearly overwhelming, for someone who had been avoiding any heavily populated area in the school for months, eating when the Hall was emptiest, when she bothered to eat at all. With a frown, Cass realised that she couldn't remember having so much as a bite of toast since before Hermione Granger ended up in the hospital wing.

Thinking about Hermione made something slimy writhe within Cass, and she found herself almost wishing that the blankness would overtake her again, so she wouldn't have to think or feel guilty anymore. But when she relaxed back into that, though, she suddenly caught sight of Ron and Harry whispering over their eggs. Suddenly, she saw this as her last chance to make things right, to make it up to Harry. She had this terrible certainty that if she let go this time, waved goodbye to this feeling of actually being present in her own skin, then it would be for good.

So, putting her every effort into it, Cass forced herself to take the seat next to Harry. But that turned out to be about the best she could manage. She compelled the words to pass her lips, form a sentence…

"I have something to tell you," she said, rocking back and forth, feeling a malignant sort of anger stir somewhere inside her.

But when suddenly Percy Weasley appeared, looking exhausted, the moment was lost. Cass fled, the blankness already pulling at her edges. She could have sworn, in that moment, that she heard someone else's low chuckle echoing in her own mind.

ooOoo

She woke up cold, and stiff and scared, but her mind was gloriously _empty_. She didn't feel anyone else's anger or observations, and there was no evil chuckling in her ear. There was, however, a voice whispering in her ear, words too fast for Cass to grasp at first, just a string of sounds, ending on a hissing note. Suddenly she recognized her own name, and realised that it was one sentence, spoken over and over, sometimes in English, sometimes French, and occasionally breaking down into an unintelligible hissing. "Please wake up, Cassie," repeated in unending loop.

"I'm awake," she struggled to say, "I'm up." The voice didn't let up, though, so she mustn't have made herself clear. Cass struggled to force her eyes open, to push back against tight bands pinning her arms to her sides, and failed. She moved her lips through the words once more, before she managed to actually put her voice to work. "I'm here, I'm awake."

"Cassie!" cried the voice, and she recognized as Harry's just as she levered her eyes open and saw his face. "You're alive!"

"It's my fault, Harry, I was the one attacking people all year," she said urgently. She had been trying to tell him this for weeks, and finally felt like she could get the words out. "I'm the reason that Hermione is in the hospital… I- it was my diary, I think. I don't know how, it's all my fault!"

"Why didn't you say something, Cass? Why did you let that stupid fight stop you from coming to me?"

Cass couldn't answer, she just sobbed into her own hands, feeling like her heart was breaking all over again. Then Harry's arms came around her again, and despite the fact that she hated herself and what she had done, her spirit lifted a little. "Forget about it, Cassie," he murmured, "I'll take care of it, baby, and just you forget about it, okay?"

She nodded, tears fading away in the face of her sheer exhaustion. Harry staggered to his feet, pulling Cass with him. Somehow, the pair managed to stumble their way down the long tunnel to where Ron Weasley had managed to make a small hole in the mountain of rubble. "Harry! You're alright! What happened?" he asked anxiously, pulling the bedraggled pair through to where he and Professor Lockhart were waiting.

In his relief, Ron blurted out a brief explanation of how the teacher had managed to completely wipe his own mind, going on to ask anxious questions about what had happened.

Harry was quiet, making sure that Cass was comfortably settled on the floor. Before turning to Ron, Harry took a good long look at the man who tried to use the memory charm so sinisterly on him hours before. "Sit down. I have something to confess," he said solemnly. Ron, taken aback by Harry's demeanour, sat beside Cass, who slumped against him miserably. "Now…I need you to listen carefully to what I say. I need you to understand what I'm telling you, even if you can never forgive what I have done."

Ron was truly bewildered, especially as Harry's eyes darted continually to Lockhart, as though he was especially concerned that the blonde half-wit listen to his story. "Harry, what are you- was it Rid-"

"It all started," Harry began, hastily cutting short Ron's words, "With the prank war that Cass and I had going in the first weeks of school. It was friendly, at first, both of us more concerned with besting our fathers than beating each other. That changed, _as_ _you_ _know_, when Cass tried to recruit Malfoy by playing the family connections card. I was stupidly jealous, afraid that she considered the Malfoys more her family than I was, since they were actually related to her."

"That's not-"

"Now, Ron, I know how foolish it was, there's no need to tell me now. I cannot change what has already happened, you know. This is one of those things that we shall all just have to go on remembering, no matter how painful."

Harry didn't come right out and wink at Ron, but his best friend finally caught on, anyway. The redheaded boy frowned deeply, but didn't try to stop Harry just then, either. "I was furious and hurt, after the big fight Cass and I had. I wanted so badly to beat her, to find the most outrageous prank I could, to prove to her that I was a better person to have on your side that that jumped up Slytherin, even if he is her cousin. My inspiration came from something Hermione said to us in passing. Do you remember the day that she first mentioned the Chamber of Secrets to us, Ron?"

This was a moment of truth for Ron, or, more accurately, the moment of lies. He glared fiercely at Harry, just to let his best friend know that he already regretted participating in this insanity, but ultimately he just wrapped a firm arm around the little girl Harry loved, who was crumpled against him, and spoke. "Way back in September, right? She read about it in _Hogwarts: a History_, and told us that Slytherin would have been better off building a public library than a secret chamber."

"Right," Harry said, meeting Ron's eye dead on, nodding slightly. "Such a Hermione-like thing to say, wasn't it? Anyway, that's when I decided I would seek it out. Finding the Chamber seemed like a good way to prove I was better than Malfoy."

"You found the Chamber of Secrets as a prank?" Ron asked skeptically.

"That is exactly what I did. I found the Chamber, because I alone in this school can speak Parseltongue." Harry said this slowly, with careful emphasis on each word. "I mean, can you speak the language that controls the basilisk in the Chamber, Ron?"

"No," the redhead said firmly.

"No one can, but me. No one, right, Cassie?" Harry said, addressing the girl for the first time. She looked up, startled. "Try it for me, Cassie. Try to speak Parseltongue."

She stared at him, bewildered, and he finally smiled drily. "Of course you can't. You're just a little girl, after all, a little first year, even if you did nearly out-prank me this year."

"Harry-"

"I'm not through yet," he said, not letting Cass speak. "I want to confess the full weight of my crimes to you before we leave this place. Just listen. I took control over the beast and the Chamber, but it was difficult. The monster refused to stay under my power when I wasn't right there to control it, and it began to break free and roam the school through the sewer pipes. I wouldn't have figured out that that was how the beast was moving through the walls, but Hermione realised what was going on, and left that clue for us just before my creature got to her."

"Your creature? You talk as though it was a pet, but it nearly killed our best friend!" Ron protested savagely, holding on to Cass even as she weakly tried to sit up.

"I tried to warn people! I really, did, when the beast got out of hand!" Harry moaned miserably. Ron was impressed by the boy's acting ability in spite of himself. "I wrote those messages on the walls, so that people would know to be wary, so someone would be able to figure out what the creature was, and stop it. I didn't want to hurt people; I didn't want my creature to hurt them!"

"People did get hurt, though, Harry. This is serious!"

"Enough people had been hurt…I told Cass, I confessed what I had done, just this morning, didn't I, Cassie? I confessed everything, I showed her this place. I revealed every horrible secret to her, right, babe?"

Ron squeezed the girl's shoulder, and she nodded reluctantly.

"She tried to get me to go to McGonagall, or to write to Dumbledore, but I was ashamed! And so, to change my stubborn mind, Cassie wrote her own death sentence on the wall and she came down here to try to destroy my creature. When I realised… well, I couldn't risk failing to control the beast, not with Cassie in its power. I brought you down here with me so that there was a chance you could save her, if I failed and the beast turned on me."

"That was quick thinking," Ron commented drily.

"Yes, well, now I have unburdened myself to you," Harry said, leaning in to Ron and Cass, but still speaking loud enough for the silent observer to overhear. "But now I need you to promise not to let anyone else know. I would especially hate it if Dumbledore found out."

Looking into the probing green eyes of his best friend, Ron felt around for the words Harry needed him to say. "But of course you need to tell Dumbledore! They've kicked him out of the school, and the only way they'll let him back is if the truth comes out. You've got to save Dumbledore's job, Harry. You're the one who messed it up for him."

"I don't know," Harry said in an uncertain voice, offering a shade of a wink to Ron with the side of his face not in Lockhart's line of sight. "I don't want to disappoint him… I don't want Padfoot and Uncle Moony to find out."

"Harry," Cass said in a small voice, "Dumbledore's bird saved us…"

Harry sighed, and said, "Okay, Cassie, I'll take care of this, alright? Don't worry about anything. I'll fix it."

"I guess we need to figure out how to get out of here, then," Ron commented. "Got any brilliant ideas, professor?"

The three students looked around at the man who was smiling vaguely as he watched their conversation. "Who, me?" he asked, "I'm a professor?"

Ron sighed, anticipating yet another impossible obstacle to be faced to day.

Fortunately, though, with the assistance of Dumbledore's pet phoenix, Ron and Harry managed to get the brainless teacher and the worn out little girl up the pipe and into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. "Okay, Ron, take Lockhart outside and give me two minutes to put Cass in better order, alright?"

Ron frowned, but dragged the blonde idiot into the hallway, glancing back to see Harry wiping the slime off of Cass's pale face before the door swung shut on him. Ron supposed Harry was trying to make Cass seem less like she'd become some sort of zombie creature in the last few months, so that everyone would believe that she had entered into this whole mess late in the game. Ron didn't exactly know why Harry wanted Cass's involvement kept out, or even what Cass's involvement was, exactly, but that didn't really matter to the redheaded boy. He knew Cass wasn't exactly Harry's sister, but they had grown up together like Ron and Anna had, and Ron would do anything to protect Annie. He also knew that Harry would do anything he could to help Ron protect the youngest Weasley. So, Ron would stand shoulder to shoulder with Harry any day, no matter what his best friend asked of him.

Not, it turned out, that Harry wanted much more from Ron than he had already given. After he had brought Cass out of the bathroom looking much healthier, with her hair charmed dark blue, her clothes clean and fitting better and her pale face at least clean, the four had gone straight to Professor McGonagall's office. There they had found Dumbledore, as well as Harry's godfather and adoptive uncle, and Harry had spun the same story for them as he had back by the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

Ron had been prepared to offer collaborative evidence as required, but Lockhart kept jumping in with bits and pieces of the conversation he had overheard. The youngest Weasley male suspected that the reason Harry had staged that conversation in front of Lockhart, instead of just flat out asking Ron to go along with the lie he planned to tell, was so that the story would have the benefit of an adult witness.

"So," Harry concluded some time later, looking away from his rather skeptical audience to examine his toes, "Everything just really got out of hand. I thought I could control the beast, because I can talk to snakes, but I couldn't, not well enough. Everything that went wrong this year was my fault, and I'm so, so sorry, sir."

"What you are telling me, Harry, is that a second year student sought out and opened the magical Chamber which has been so long and thoroughly lost, as an attempt at a practical joke?" Dumbledore questioned solemnly, examining the boy from behind his glasses.

"Yes, sir," Harry said, meeting the professor's gaze, "That is what I am telling you."

Some spark lit the old wizard's face briefly, before he spoke again. "And there were…no outside influences on the one who opened the Chamber?"

"Well… perhaps one, professor," said Harry, laying a worn, torn book on the desk that Ron recognized as the mutilated remains of Tom Riddle's diary.

"I see," said Dumbledore thoughtfully, taking the book and examining it. "We shall speak of this another time, Harry. Right now, you and your family should get Miss Black down to the hospital wing, where she can sleep off her… ordeal. Then you may want to go down to the Great Hall, where there is something of a celebration going on."

"Thank you, sir," Harry said politely, "Cassie is practically asleep on top of Uncle Moony as it is."

"Albus," spoke Harry's godfather for the first time since the boy had begun his story. "Is Harry going to be punished for this whole debacle?"

The headmaster cocked his head to one side, "No, no. I think those responsible for the terrible occurrences over the last year will be punished as the world deems fit. I think Mr. Potter has quite learned a lesson from all of this, and often, that is the only silver lining in a dismal situation."

Ron was relieved, for many reasons, as he helped Harry's uncle support Cass Black on the walk to the hospital wing. Harry wasn't being punished, Cass had been kept out of the discussion, there was a feast to be had, and Hermione would soon be awake. The redheaded boy shuffled forward a bit faster, not even noticing as Harry and his godfather fell a bit farther behind.

ooOoo

"So, you want so badly to be a Black that you got into a huge, jealous row with Cass, entered into a prank war with her, and opened the Chamber of Secrets?" Padfoot asked as Uncle Moony, Ron and Cass turned a corner up ahead. "That's the truth?"

"The truth is an awfully subjective thing, Padfoot," Harry said sagely, a bit of a crooked grin pulling as his lips, before sobering out, "My truth is that I'm responsible for every bad thing that happened here this year, and telling Dumbledore so kept more people from being hurt. That is the truth that is most important. As for a deep jealousy of the Black family heritage… well, your mother was an awfully impressive woman."

"I love you to the moon and back, kiddo, but here's a truth that's not all that subjective," Padfoot said, slinging an arm around the boy he had raised, "My mother hated you almost as much as she hated Moony. And she thought Moony was my gay lover, and the reason I never married a proper little pureblood wife to be mother to all my proper little pureblood heirs."

"Huh," said Harry thoughtfully, "I always thought she hated me because she thought my father was your gay lover and the reason you never got married."

"Well," said the man, looking sideways at his favourite twelve-year-old, "I may have once shouted the term 'homo-erotic orgies' when she asked what possible reason I had for preferring to spend the summer with my friends at the Potter's place than at home, taking lessons with my cousins."

Maybe Harry, young as he was, should have been shocked by what Padfoot said, but… well, it was Padfoot, and he had said worse. Right now, Harry was just so relieved that Padfoot was still being Padfoot, and that he didn't think Harry was a terrible pure-blood obsessed crazy person, that all he could do was laugh.

**_A/N: A long chapter, I know... but a whole year gotten through in just 7,760 words. That's impressive in my book, lol! Not a lot was changed, but believe me, these are differences that matter later on. Thanks for reading! ~ QK_**


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